Telehealth for Wound Management During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Case Studies.

Background: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cardiovascular Surgery (CV) service of an academic medical center conducted a quality improvement project to decrease readmissions to the hospital from 2 rehabilitation facilities using telehealth via video calling. This initiative became of great importance with the COVID-19 pandemic because it helped the CV service better navigate and more efficiently meet the patient care needs associated with patient care restrictions. The CV service had to quickly evaluate and implement measures to reduce the rate of transmission of the coronavirus, which included adapting the clinic workflow to comply with state and federal recommendations. To minimize the interruption of clinical services and the associated revenue, a rapid transition from outpatient clinic visits to telehealth visits was implemented.

Cases: Two cases reports of patients with wounds managed with 2 different telehealth platforms are described. Doxy.me platform allows the provider to e-mail or text a link to their personal waiting room for patients to join the video call. The second platform is Cisco Jabber platform to connect directly to the nursing unit at a skilled nursing or rehabilitation facility.

Conclusion: Health care systems have had to adjust the manner in which they triage, evaluate, and care for patients using telehealth platforms that do not rely on in-person clinic visits during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are multiple telehealth platforms that require careful planning and treatment implementation. Each health care agency needs to choose the one or ones that function the best in their care setting.