How to do remote care of patients during the pandemic? Complete guide on the topic

In Brazil, remote patient care is still a recent modality. But with the changes brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic, this has become a form of consultation very sought by patients, helping to keep their health up to date, without the need for contact and agglomeration.

Thanks to technological advances, this is a possibility that is already real in several countries such as the United States and China, where tele-consultation offers more convenience to patients at one time.

Do you want to better understand how this type of remote care works and how to offer it in your clinic or office? Read on!

How does remote patient care work?

As its name suggests, remote patient care is one in which the health professional and the patient are physically distant. Tele-consultation, however, is not regulated in Brazil and was only allowed by the Federal Council of Medicine (CFM) and other health agencies during the Coronavirus crisis that we are experiencing.

Remote care, however, does not need to be just a consultation, but also guidelines for patients who have already been seen personally, as in the case of chronic disease treatment, medication control, doubts after a procedure, among other possibilities for interaction. This contact can be made in several ways: exchange of messages via WhatsApp, video call, tele call, among other available technologies.

What types of remote queries are there?

Distance consultations can be varied and do not only involve healthcare professionals and patients. Some of the possibilities are:

- between doctors or other health professionals: when a general practitioner seeks help from a specialist, for example, or when several professionals of different specialties come together to plan a multidisciplinary treatment. The patient may or may not be present;

- between health professionals and patients: this service occurs directly, without the mediation of other professionals;

- remote examination report: the reports are offered by telemedicine companies and it works like this: the data collected in the diagnostic tests (images and graphs) are shared with specialists capable of interpreting, issuing and signing valid documents, awarding the examinations accordingly with the rules of the Ministry of Health and the Federal Council of Medicine. The reports can only be given by specialists in the area of ​​the test performed, duly registered with the regional council of the state;

- synchronous: immediate interaction, for example, video consultation;

- asynchronous: it happens at different times and does not require direct interaction between health professionals and patients. For example, when a patient sends a message to the clinic with questions about medications or procedures after surgery. In Brazil, the Ministry of Health determines that doubts shared through asynchronous tele consultations are answered in a maximum of 72 hours.

These consultations can be either first aid, follow-up, supervision or urgency - and can serve from primary care and nursing to the different medical specialties.

Dentistry

In dentistry, tele-consultations can also be used during the pandemic, especially for follow-up and to answer questions from patients.

Attention: there is a bill in progress to release tele dentistry. For the time being, we recommend that you contact the Regional Dentistry Council of your region to confirm this information.

Of course, you will not be able to examine the patient or perform more complex analyzes through a video call, but you will be able to maintain post-surgical follow-up, explain the use of certain medications and guide in specific cases.

What are the advantages of remote care and telemedicine?

There are numerous advantages to offering remote patient care, such as:

- offer care without the need for physical contact or agglomerations, something fundamental in this period of pandemic;

- offer health services to people in regions with difficult access or mobility difficulties;

- greater diagnostic accuracy, since cases can be discussed with several specialists, being very useful in hospitals and clinics that do not have a clinical staff with certain specialties;

- during the pandemic, remote care facilitates patients' access to pulmonologists and infectologists;

- there is a greater optimization of time and costs, both for patients and health professionals, as there is no need to physically move to be attended to and demands can be resolved more quickly;

- information security, as medical data are stored and distributed according to the security rules already defined in the country - and medical information is more secure than in the physical record.

How does the legislation view remote patient care?

Before the pandemic, telemedicine was only legally permitted in some situations, such as in the discussion of clinical cases among health professionals and for guidance and clears doubts between health professionals and patients. The CFM prohibited the prescription of drugs and treatments.

Ordinance MS nº 2546/2011, however, redefined and expanded the Telessaúde Brasil Program, establishing rules for the use of telemedicine in partner establishments, both public and private. As one of Covid-19's coping measures, CFM has released tele-orientation, tele-consultation and tele-monitoring. Thus, doctors will be able to use the available platforms to conduct tele consultations with their patients. The recommendations are found in Ordinance No. 467, published in the Federal Official Gazette in March 2020.

How do I implement remote patient care in my office?

If you want to implement remote patient care in your office, it is important to look for a tool that offers: secure storage of information sent between patients or other healthcare professionals through a system with encryption and ease of use, both for professionals health and patients.

• Online scheduling

To start offering more facilities to your patients, how about also having an online appointment? That way your patients can do all the steps directly over the internet.

Chatbots are great tools in this regard, as they work both on your office website and on social networks, such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. The robots will only show users the days and times that you make available and the schedule is automatically synchronized with the online schedule of the office professionals.

When scheduling is done, you can associate the triggering of an e-mail or other type of message reminding the patient about the consultation and advising on how it will work, for example by sending the access link or confirming issues such as date, time and requirements (how to access via smartphone, tablet or computer with camera and microphone).

• Remote patient care tools

To make this migration in the time of a pandemic, there are some free tools that can help you create a video call with the patients scheduled. The main ones are:

- Whereby: is a free tool that generates a unique link that can be personalized with your name. This software also allows the sharing of the screen, something interesting, for example, to show animations or images that assist in the process of explaining diagnoses and treatments to patients;

- Google Meet: the tool can be used free of charge until June 2020 and its operation is similar to the previous one, allowing you to generate a link to the video call and also share the screen. However, it does not offer a customizable link, but it does allow you to control who will have access to the video call;

- Whatsapp: the big advantage is that most patients already use Whatsapp on a daily basis and are used to the tool. In this case, however, there are no links or screen sharing, but the procedure can be done entirely by cell phone, bringing even more convenience to patients.

Conclusion

In this content, you saw that remote patient care is a reality that has helped a lot in this time of pandemic. In view of the changes brought about by the Coronavirus, the CFM and the Ministry of Health released doctors to perform consultations at a distance, using technology. For dentists, it is a little more difficult to make appointments at a distance, although these technologies can be used for follow-ups and even to capture and prepare leads.

Source: Cloudia. Available at: https://www.cloudia.com.br/atendimento-remoto-dos-pacientes/. Access on: 07/01/2020.
Image: Prostock-studio, de envatoelements