Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Sep 22, 2020
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 22, 2020 - Nov 17, 2020
Date Accepted: Oct 29, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Nov 3, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic using digital health technologies: practical experience of a tertiary hospital in China
ABSTRACT
Background:
The outbreak of the novel corona virus disease (COVID-19) has caused a continuing global pandemic. Hospitals are integral in the control and prevention of COVID-19 but are met with numerous challenges in the midst of the epidemic.
Objective:
The objective of our study was to introduce the practical experience of design and implementation, as well as the preliminary results, of an online COVID-19 service platform from a tertiary hospital in China.
Methods:
The online COVID-19 service platform was deployed within the healthcare system of the Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital-Internet Hospital, a program function which provides online medical services for both public individuals and lay-healthcare workers. The focal functions of this system include COVID-19 automated screening, related symptoms monitoring, online consultation, psychological support, and it also serves as a COVID-19 knowledge hub. The design and process of each functionality were introduced. The platform services usage data were collected and represented by three periods: the pre-epidemic period (2019.12.22~2020.1.22), the outbreak period (2020.1.23~2020.3.31), and the post-epidemic period (2020.4.1~2020.6.30).
Results:
By the end of June 2020, the COVID-19 automated screening and symptoms monitoring system had been used by 96,642 people for 161,884 and 7,795,194 person-times. The general online consultation service volume scaled up from 930 visits per-month in pre-epidemic period to over 8406 visits during the outbreak period, and dropped to 2218 visits in the post-epidemic period. The psychological counseling program served 636 clients during epidemic period. For people who used the COVID-19 automated screening service, overall, 160,916 (99%) of the users were classified under the no risk category. Less than 464 (0.3%) of the people were categorized under the medium to high risk class, and 12 people (0.01%) were recommended for COVID-19 treatment. Among the 96,642 individuals who used the COVID-19 related symptoms monitoring service, 6,696(6.9%) were symptomatic at some points during monitoring period. Fever was the most frequently reported symptom, with 40% of the people having had this symptom. Cough (25%) and sore throat (24%) were also relatively frequently reported among the symptomatic clients.
Conclusions:
The online COVID-19 service platform exhibited as a role model for using digital health technologies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic from a tertiary hospital in China. The digital solutions of COVID-19 automated screening, daily symptoms monitoring, online care service, and knowledge propagation have plausible acceptability and feasibility for complementing offline hospital services and facilitating disease control and prevention.
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