Implementation of remote external consultation by WhatsApp during the COVID 19 pandemic: proposal for surgical services in Venezuela

Abstract

Since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic, the most affected countries, including ours, have redistributed healthcare activity in hospitals to allocate human resources, beds, operating rooms and intensive care units to care for symptomatic or critically ill patients. As a result, the volume of outpatient consultations, procedures and elective surgeries has decreased considerably, causing a subsequent accumulation of surgical cases that could be oriented remotely and safeguard the health of health personnel, reduce the risk of exposure of surgical patients, maintain the practice clinic, and promote the incorporation of technological tools to patient care in times of contingency.

The objective of this work is to propose a system for the evaluation and classification of cases remotely through pre-consultations via WhatsApp video calls that facilitate and speed up the prioritization, diagnosis and preoperative referral in the surgical services of hospitals; also allowing to keep both the patient and health personnel the least exposed to the risk of contagion and guaranteeing the continuity of the external consultation during the quarantine