Telemedicine During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences From Western China

Zhen Hong, Nian Li, Dajiang Li, Junhua Li, Bing Li, Weixi Xiong, Lu Lu, Weimin Li, Dong Zhou, Zhen Hong, Nian Li, Dajiang Li, Junhua Li, Bing Li, Weixi Xiong, Lu Lu, Weimin Li, Dong Zhou

Abstract

Disasters and pandemics pose unique challenges to health care delivery. As health care resources continue to be stretched due to the increasing burden of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, telemedicine, including tele-education, may be an effective way to rationally allocate medical resources. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a multimodal telemedicine network in Sichuan Province in Western China was activated immediately after the first outbreak in January 2020. The network synergizes a newly established 5G service, a smartphone app, and an existing telemedicine system. Telemedicine was demonstrated to be feasible, acceptable, and effective in Western China, and allowed for significant improvements in health care outcomes. The success of telemedicine here may be a useful reference for other parts of the world.

Keywords: COVID-19; coronavirus disease; medical education; pandemics; tele-education; telemedicine; teleteaching.

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

©Zhen Hong, Nian Li, Dajiang Li, Junhua Li, Bing Li, Weixi Xiong, Lu Lu, Weimin Li, Dong Zhou. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 08.05.2020.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Progression of telemedicine in Western China during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Left: timeline of COVID-19 events since the first case was reported on December 8, 2019. Right: timeline of telemedicine milestones in Sichuan Province of Western China during the COVID-19 pandemic. WHO: World Health Organization.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The 5G telemedicine network of Sichuan Province, China, established during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This system makes use of the newly established China Telecom 5G Dual Gigabit infrastructure and currently covers all designated hospitals for COVID-19 of Sichuan Province (5 provincial-level, 24 municipal-level, and 179 county-level hospitals), with the West China Hospital of Sichuan University (WCHSU) as the central node. The median distance between a spoke hospital and WCHSU is 319 km (range 20 to 1191 km).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Web-based, real-time video telemedicine for consultations provided by a multidisciplinary team to deal with cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Western China.

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Source: PubMed

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