Using Telemedicine to Optimize Teamwork and Infection Control of Critical and Highly-infectious Patients in an Emergency Department

May 15, 2023 updated by: National Taiwan University Hospital

Application of Telemedicine to Optimize Teamwork and Infection Control of Critical Patients in Isolation Rooms in the Emergency Department During Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 Outbreak

Since 2000, various emerging infectious diseases have repeatedly caused serious impact on the health of the global population and the healthcare systems. With the growing international transportation and improving accessibility of the healthcare systems, hospitals have been inevitably the first sentinels dealing with emerging infectious diseases. The biological disasters, such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korean in 2015, and the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak this year, challenged our vulnerable healthcare systems and caused great loss of lives.

Regarding the ongoing global epidemics and possible community outbreaks of the COVID-19, the management of biological disasters for an overcrowded emergency department should be planned. In the early 2020, the emergency department used a double-triage and telemedicine method to treat non-critical patient with suspected COVID-19. This application reduced the exposure time of the first responders and reserve adequate interview quality. However, for the critical patients treated in the isolated resuscitation rooms, the unique environment limited the teamwork and communication for the resuscitation team. These factors might led to poorer quality of critical care.

The investigators designed a telemedicine-teamwork model, which connected the isolation room, prepare room and nursing station by an video-conferencing system in the emergency department. This model try to break the barriers of space between the rooms and facilitate the teamwork communications between each unit. Besides, by providing a more efficient workflow, this model could lower the total exposure time for all workers in the contaminated area. This study was conducted to evaluate the benefits of the telemedicine-teamwork model and provide a practical, safe and effective alternative to critical care of the patients with suspected highly infectious diseases.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

74

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Taiwan
      • Taipei, Taiwan, 100
        • National Taiwan University Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

20 years to 99 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Patients triaged as highly-infectious patients, needed to be treated in isolation rooms in the emergency department.

Description

For patients:

1.Patients triaged as highly-infectious patients, needed to be treated in isolation rooms in the emergency department.

For healthcare providers:

1. Those providers who participates in the critical care for the patients included in the study accordingly

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Intervention / Treatment
Critical patients in the emergency department
Other: telemedicine
Using telemedicine system to communicate
Other: traditional communication tools
Use telephone or direct verbal communication

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
time to complete intubation
Time Frame: immediately after intervention
immediately after intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
teamwork score
Time Frame: immediately after intervention
Team Emergency Assessment Measure, minimal score is 0 and the maximal score is 4. Higher score means a better outcome.
immediately after intervention
exposure time in isolation rooms
Time Frame: immediately after intervention
immediately after intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

National Taiwan University Hospital

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Chien-Hao Lin, MD, National Taiwan University Hospital

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

February 3, 2021

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 31, 2021

Study Completion (Actual)

July 31, 2021

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 23, 2020

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 12, 2020

First Posted (Actual)

October 19, 2020

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 17, 2023

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 15, 2023

Last Verified

October 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 202007114RINA

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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