More than 3 years of teleconsultations: A retrospective cohort study in specialized outpatient palliative care.

Background: Telemedicine in palliative care is advancing to conquer challenges like staff shortages and limited access. Though feasibility and acceptance are proven, the clinical effects of teleconsultations (a nurse on-site consulting with a remote physician) have yet to be studied. The impact on physicians' workload or which patients it suits best, remain unclear.

Concept and development of a telemedical supervision system for anesthesiology in operating rooms using the interoperable communication standard ISO/IEEE 11073 SDC.

Objectives: Discussion of a telemedical supervision system for anesthesiology in the operating room using the interoperable communication protocol SDC. Validation of a first conceptual demonstrator and highlight of strengths and weaknesses.

Methods: The system includes relevant medical devices, a central anesthesia workstation (AN-WS), and a remote supervision workstation (SV-WS) and the concept uses the interoperability standard ISO/IEEE 11073 SDC.

Telemedicine in civil protection: A controlled simulation study for the analysis of patient care.

Objectives: More and more disasters are occurring and there will be an increasing shortage of physicians in the future. Telemedicine could be a solution here to offer medical care despite the lack of physicians in the area of operation. This study analyzes whether telemedicine for lower-qualified paramedics is comparable to conventional disaster medicine.

Long-Term Adoption of Televisits in Nursing Homes During the COVID-19 Crisis and Following Up Into the Postpandemic Setting: Mixed Methods Study.

Background: There is growing evidence that telemedicine can improve the access to and quality of health care for nursing home residents. However, it is still unclear how to best manage and guide the implementation process to ensure long-term adoption, especially in the context of a decline in telemedicine use after the COVID-19 crisis.

Objective: This study aims to identify and address major challenges for the implementation of televisits among residents in a nursing home, their caring nurses, and their treating general practitioners (GPs).

[Telemedical anesthesia consent - Are the patients ready for it? : A comparative requirement analysis before and during the pandemic].

Background: Comprehensive anesthesia preparation by means of the anamnesis and physical examination is considered an essential part of the quality criteria for anesthesia. Especially due to the shortage of specialists, there are usually long waiting times in anesthesia outpatient departments and patients must frequently return in cases of missing or pending findings. Telemedicine already offers alternatives in the context of video communication.

[Teleconsultation for preoperative evaluation and informed consent-Are we ready for a paradigm shift?].

In Germany, approximately 17 million anaesthesiological procedures and, consequently, roughly the same number of preoperative consultations are conducted each year. So far, these have predominantly taken place in person. However, recent developments in technology, medical-legal aspects, and politics, combined with the catalyzing effect of the pandemic situation, have led to a significant boost in telemedicine.

For Heart Rate Assessments from Drone Footage in Disaster Scenarios.

The ability to use drones to obtain important vital signs could be very valuable for emergency personnel during mass-casualty incidents. The rapid and robust remote assessment of heart rates could serve as a life-saving decision aid for first-responders. With the flight sensor data of a specialized drone, a pipeline was developed to achieve a robust, non-contact assessment of heart rates through remote photoplethysmography (rPPG).

Breathing Pattern Monitoring by Using Remote Sensors.

The ability to continuously and unobtrusively monitor and classify breathing patterns can be very valuable for automated health assessments because respiration is tightly coupled to many physiological processes. Pathophysiological changes in these processes often manifest in altered breathing patterns and can thus be immediately detected. In order to develop a breathing pattern monitoring system, a study was conducted in which volunteer subjects were asked to breathe according to a predefined breathing protocol containing multiple breathing patterns while being recorded with color and thermal cameras.

Telemedicine in medical education: An example of a digital preparatory course for the clinical traineeship - a pre-post comparison.

Telemedicine is a significant component of healthcare in most disciplines, giving great importance to the education of young physicians in this field. However, the topic of telemedicine has not yet been implemented in medical schools' curricula. This paper makes an important contribution to closing this gap by designing, implementing and evaluating a course with telemedical components.

Infection Probability Index: Implementation of an Automated Chronic Wound Infection Marker.

The number of people suffering from chronic wounds is increasing due to demographic changes and the global epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Innovative imaging techniques within the field of chronic wound diagnostics are required to improve wound care by predicting and detecting wound infections to accelerate the application of treatments. For this reason, the infection probability index (IPI) is introduced as a novel infection marker based on thermal wound imaging.

Consciousness Detection on Injured Simulated Patients Using Manual and Automatic Classification via Visible and Infrared Imaging.

In a disaster scene, triage is a key principle for effectively rescuing injured people according to severity level. One main parameter of the used triage algorithm is the patient's consciousness. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have been investigated toward (semi-)automatic triage.

Teleconsultation for preoperative evaluation during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: A technical and medical feasibility study.

Background: During the surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections in early 2020, many medical organisations began developing strategies for implementing teleconsultation to maintain medical services during lockdown and to limit physical contact. Therefore, we developed a teleconsultation preoperative evaluation platform to replace on-site preoperative meetings.

Objective: This study assessed the feasibility of a teleconsultation for preoperative evaluation and procedure-associated adverse events.

Augmented Reality for Guideline Presentation in Medicine: Randomized Crossover Simulation Trial for Technically Assisted Decision-making.

Background: Guidelines provide instructions for diagnostics and therapy in modern medicine. Various mobile devices are used to represent the potential complex decision trees. An example of time-critical decisions is triage in case of a mass casualty incident.

Monitoring postoperative lung recovery using electrical impedance tomography in post anesthesia care unit: an observational study.

With electrical impedance tomography (EIT) recruitment and de-recruitment phenomena can be quantified and monitored at bedside. The aim was to examine the feasibility of EIT with respect to monitor atelectasis formation and resolution in the post anesthesia care unit (PACU). In this observational study, 107 postoperative patients were investigated regarding the presence and recovery of atelectasis described by the EIT-derived parameters Global Inhomogeneity Index (GI Index), tidal impedance variation (TIV), and the changes in end-expiratory lung impedance (ΔEELI).

Reducing Loneliness in Stationary Geriatric Care with Robots and Virtual Encounters-A Contribution to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The bans on visiting nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, while intended to protect residents, also have the risk of increasing the loneliness and social isolation that already existed among the older generations before the pandemic. To combat loneliness and social isolation in nursing homes, this trial presents a study during which social networks of nursing home residents and elderly hospital patients were maintained through virtual encounters and robots, respectively. The observational trial included volunteers who were either residents of nursing homes or patients in a geriatric hospital.

An Anatomical Thermal 3D Model in Preclinical Research: Combining CT and Thermal Images.

Even though animal trials are a controversial topic, they provide knowledge about diseases and the course of infections in a medical context. To refine the detection of abnormalities that can cause pain and stress to the animal as early as possible, new processes must be developed. Due to its noninvasive nature, thermal imaging is increasingly used for severity assessment in animal-based research.

[When emergency physician and tele-emergency physician save life together : A case description on the application of prehospital telemedicine for ventricular tachycardia with hemodynamic instability].

Telemedicine has already entered the rescue service in some regions of Germany. This case description is about a telemedical emergency physician case where an emergency doctor was also at the scene of the emergency. The patient had a life-threatening ventricular tachycardia and became hemodynamically unstable.

Employment of Telemedicine in Nursing Homes: Clinical Requirement Analysis, System Development and First Test Results.

Purpose: Demographic change and lack of specialized workforces are challenging. Likewise, home visits by general practitioners (GPs) become rarer. If a nursing home resident develops acute symptoms, nurses are often inclined to call the rescue service.

[Appropriate allocation of resources for interhospital transfer in emergency medical service-is a physician in the dispatch center helpful?].

Background: The number of interhospital transfers is constantly increasing because of specialization of medical facilities, capacity balancing between intensive care units as well as earlier rehabilitation procedures. This leads to an increase in requests for emergency physicians to accompany patient transfers. This study investigated whether clarification of interhospital transport by an emergency physician at the dispatch center can optimize the use of emergency services resources.

Evaluation of a bronchoscopy guidance system for bronchoscopy training, a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Conventional training in bronchoscopy is performed either on patients (apprenticeship model) or phantoms. While the former is associated with increased rate of patient complications, procedure time, and amount of sedation, the latter does not offer any form of feedback to the trainee. This paper presents a study which investigates whether a bronchoscopy guidance system may be a helpful tool for training of novice bronchoscopists.

Comparison of two experimental ARDS models in pigs using electrical impedance tomography.

Background: Animal trials contribute to major achievements in medical science. The so-called lavage model is frequently used to evaluate ventilation strategies in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) using electrical impedance tomography (EIT). But, the lavage model itself might have systematic impacts on EIT parameters.

Technical Support by Smart Glasses During a Mass Casualty Incident: A Randomized Controlled Simulation Trial on Technically Assisted Triage and Telemedical App Use in Disaster Medicine.

Background: To treat many patients despite lacking personnel resources, triage is important in disaster medicine. Various triage algorithms help but often are used incorrectly or not at all. One potential problem-solving approach is to support triage with Smart Glasses.

Optimizing PEEP by Electrical Impedance Tomography in a Porcine Animal Model of ARDS.

Background: Mechanical ventilation is necessary in diverse clinical circumstances. Especially in the context of ARDS, so-called protective ventilation strategies must be followed. It is already known that PEEP might enhance oxygenation in ARDS.