The Role of Virtual Consultations in Plastic Surgery During COVID-19 Lockdown
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
SPECIAL TOPIC
The Role of Virtual Consultations in Plastic Surgery During COVID-19 Lockdown Vikram Sinha1
•
Mohsan Malik2 • Nora Nugent3 • Paul Drake3 • Naveen Cavale4
Received: 13 July 2020 / Accepted: 16 August 2020 Ó The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Background COVID-19 has led to government enforced ‘lockdown’ in the UK severely limiting face-to-face patient interaction. Virtual consultations present a means for continued patient access to health care. Our aim was to evaluate the use of virtual consultations (VCons) during lockdown and their possible role in the future. Methods An anonymous survey was disseminated to UK and European plastic surgeons via social media, email sharing and via the European Association of Societies of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery newsletter. Uptake of VCons, modality, effectiveness, safety and future utility were assessed. Results Forty-three senior plastic surgeons responded to the survey. The majority of the respondents (97.7%) reported using VCons during COVID-19 lockdown, of which 74.4% had no prior experience. Two-thirds of surgeons utilised commercial platforms such as Zoom, FaceTime and Skype, 38.1% of respondents did not know about or were unsure about adequate encryption for health care use, and just under a half (47.6%) reported they were unaware of or lacking GDPR compliance. Most (97.6%) Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00266-020-01932-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Vikram Sinha [email protected] 1
School of Medical Education, King’s College London, Great Maze Pond, London SE1 1UL, UK
2
Department of Ophthalmology, Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, UK
3
Plastic Surgery, Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, UK
4
Surgical Department, King’s College Hospital, London, UK
say they are likely to use virtual consultations after lockdown. Conclusion Virtual consultations have had a crucial role in patient care during UK lockdown. It is clear that they will serve as an adjunct to face-to-face consultation in the future. Further regulation is required to ensure platforms offer adequate safety and security measures and are compliant with relevant data protection laws. Level of Evidence IV This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266. Keywords Plastic surgery Telemedicine Virtual consultation Patient safety Technology
Introduction The rapid spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), first identified in Wuhan province in December 2019, has led to a global pandemic and unprecedented challenge for health care institutions across the world [1]. In an attempt to contain the spread of COVID-19, the UK government implemented national curfew (‘lockdown’) policy on the 23 March 2020, to minimise community transmission. This has resulted in reduction of cli
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