Abstract
Maintaining high-quality care for urological patients is a challenge during and after the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We observe an increasing volume of postponed elective visits at our tertiary care hospital, holding the risk for deterioration of non-emergency disease conditions. As it is unclear for how long the pandemic will last, we propose to implement telehealth as a solution to provide regular symptom monitoring compatible with social distancing guidelines during the pandemic and beyond. Telemedical assessment and prioritizing of high-risk patients for individual consults at outpatient services will have to be aligned with available outpatient capacity and local outbreak severity.
Highlights
Discovered in Wuhan, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1] has rapidly spread around the world and has been declared a pandemic by the world health organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020 [2]
As prolonged or intermittent social distancing might be necessary until as late as 2022 [7], solutions for outpatient care should be suitable for long-term implementation, if required
Anonymized patient data were obtained from digital patient records of all elective patients appointed for urology outpatient visits between 16th March and 12th April
Summary
Discovered in Wuhan, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1] has rapidly spread around the world and has been declared a pandemic by the world health organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020 [2]. As the outbreak forced health care systems to reallocate medical resources to provide capacities for the overwhelming surge of COVID-19 patients, the majority of elective urological outpatient procedures at our hospital have been suspended and postponed. With more than 155,000 confirmed cases and more than 6000 reported deaths in Germany as of April 29, 2020 [3] the current efforts are mostly directed towards managing. Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. As a large tertiary referral center, we sought to establish a strategy to overcome the anticipated increase in patient volume and provide adapted outpatient care in the postpandemic phase
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
