P-045 - VIRTUAL VASCULAR OUTPATIENT CLINICS! FROM PANDEMIC TO THE NORM

TOPIC:
Other
AUTHORS:
Naseer A. (Department of Vascular Surgery North Wales Hospitals ~ Wales ~ United Kingdom) , Turner S. (Department of Vascular Surgery North Wales Hospitals ~ Wales ~ United Kingdom) , Papp L. (Department of Vascular Surgery North Wales Hospitals ~ Wales ~ United Kingdom) , Shaikh F.M. (Department of Vascular Surgery North Wales Hospitals ~ Wales ~ United Kingdom)
Introduction:
Like elsewhere in Europe, during the COVID 19 pandemic, strict social distancing measure were implement in United Kingdom (UK) to reduce the spread of the deadly virus. In order to restrict the hospital visits, the UK government and the vascular society of Great Britain and Ireland issued national guidance and advise to restructure the delivery of outpatient clinic appointments indicating where possible patients should be offered telephone or virtual consultation clinics. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual clinic on vascular patients and to assess if virtual method of consultation could be a viable option in the post- pandemic future.
Methods:
From May 2020 till March 2020, all patients receiving consultation, regarding their vascular symptoms over the telephone under one vascular surgeon were included in the study. Patient's demographic data was collected from the electronic patient referral system. Clinical outcome and follow up data was collected from the clinical letters, patients electronic out patient's records, patient's case notes, emergency department's admissions, and discharge summaries. The patients were followed 6 months after their index consultation. The primary outcome measure was success of the consultation, defined as achieving the same outcome as could have been achieved in a face-to-face clinic. Secondary outcome measures included patients travel distance to the hospital if the same would require attending a face to face consultation and its environmental impact.
Results:
During the study period, 318 consultations were scheduled. There were 124 (40%) new patients. 55 patients (17%) were not contactable. Of the remaining 263 consultations, 128 (49 %) had a successful outcome, remaining patients required a face to face consultation. 87 (33%) patients were discharged from the clinic. 7 (2%) patients died during the follow up period. An estimated 8159.3 (average 53.7) kilometres of patient travel (2.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions) were saved during the study period.
Conclusion:
The rate of successful outcomes following a virtual consultation in our patient population is lower as compared to conventional face-to-face clinics. However, as the service was set up in an urgent situation to cope with pandemic, there was little time for preparation. The results suggests that success rate and efficiency of the clinic can be further improved with appropriate patient selection and clinic planning.