Covid, the survey: 81% of specialist doctors inclined to telemedicine

Telemedicine took a leap forward during the pandemic emergency. And doctors are increasingly oriented to the use of these tools. Today, specialists declare themselves inclined to use telemedicine with 81% of the interviewees who would like to resort to tele-consultation and, more generally, more than 6 out of 10 doctors who would like to use tele-examination and tele-monitoring tools. These are some data from the research carried out by the Digital Innovation Observatory in Health of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano which analyzed the Italian telemedicine scenario and whose results were illustrated during the ‘Connected health’ event, promoted by Novartis, on the occasion of the launch of the WelCare telemedicine platform in oncology and hematology. The pandemic – as Paolo Locatelli, scientific director of the Digital Innovation in Healthcare Observatory reiterated, during the event – has favored the use of digital collaboration platforms between doctors and patients, with use by Italian patients that has risen by almost 20 percentage points during the emergency (from 11% to 30%). Even among specialist doctors, the pandemic has favored the use of tele-consultation tools (with an increase from 21% to 47% of use), of tele-visits, used during the emergency by 39% of specialist doctors (compared to 13% who used it before Covid) and, finally, of remote monitoring tools, which went from 13% to 28% of users. Of the Italians who use digital applications for health, almost half (46%) said they feel more aware of their pathology and their health in general and 42% believe they have support from apps to respect their treatment plan. The most used applications are those dedicated to lifestyle, used by 33% of the interviewees, followed by apps that remember drug intake (22%) and those that help keep clinical parameters under control (21%). The Observatory’s analysis also shows a high propensity of patients in Italy to use digital communication channels to interface with their doctor. Instant messaging applications are the most successful, with almost all patients interviewed (96%) declaring themselves willing to use it in the future and with half of the sample already accustomed to using these communication tools (50%) before Telemedicine, as explained by Fabrizio Pane, full professor of hematology at the Federico II University of Naples and director of hematology of the same university hospital, also opens up new possibilities for managing clinical practice, starting from the systematization of large amounts of data. “The use of digital technologies in clinical practice – says the hematologist – allows the collection and management of Big Data, of scientific and clinical value, which in the future will have an increasingly important role also in informing diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. Exchange platforms between specialist doctors, such as WelCare, allow the development of new models of organization of clinical practice, in a more collaborative and effective perspective “.