Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Apr 22, 2020
Date Accepted: Jul 26, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jul 29, 2020
Telehealth for ‘non-critical’ Patients with Chronic Diseases during the Pandemic
ABSTRACT
During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, greater attention has been drawn to telehealth to emphasize its role in reducing hospital presentations from both the COVID-19 and usual patients, whilst supporting the home isolation experienced by patients with mild symptoms. The needs of patients with chronic diseases tend to be overlooked during the pandemic. With reduced opportunities for routine clinic visits, chronic patients are adopting various telehealth services such as video consultation and remote monitoring. We advocate more innovative designs to be considered to enhance patients’ feelings of 'co-presence’ – the sense of connection with another interactant via digital technology – with their healthcare providers during this time. The co-presence enhanced design has been shown to reduce patients’ anxiety and enhance confidence in managing their chronic disease condition and has the potential to reduce the patients’ needs of having to reach out to healthcare providers during a pandemic when there are healthcare resources being stretched.
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