JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Covidom was a telesurveillance solution for home monitoring of patients with mild to moderate Covid-19, deployed in March 2020 in the greater Paris area to alleviate the burden on the healthcare system. The Covidom solution included a free web application with daily monitoring questionnaires and a regional control center to quickly handle patient alerts, including dispatching emergency medical services if necessary.

Objective:

We aim to provide an overall evaluation of the Covidom solution 18 months after its inception.

Methods:

Our primary outcome is the number of handled alerts and response escalation. Then, we analyzed Covidom safety including its ability to detect clinical worsening defined as hospitalization or death and the number of worsening without any preceding alert. We evaluated the cost of Covidom, and compared the cost of Covid-19 hospitalizations between Covidom and non-Covidom patients among mild Covid-19 cases presenting at Emergency Departments of the largest network of hospitals in the greater Paris area. Finally, we reported on user satisfaction.

Results:

From 60,073 patients monitored by Covidom, the regional control center handled 285,496 alerts, dispatching emergency medical services 518 times. Of the 947 patients experiencing clinical worsening while adhering to the daily monitoring, only 35 (1.4%; 35 were hospitalized and one died) did not previously trigger alerts. The cost of Covidom was 54€ per patient, and the cost of hospitalization for Covid-19 worsening seemed lower than in the general population. Patients that responded to the satisfaction questionnaire rated Covidom highly, rating the likelihood to recommend Covidom with a median of 9 out of 10.

Conclusions:

Covidom may have contributed to alleviate the pressure on healthcare system in the initial months of the pandemic, though its impact may be lower than anticipated. Covidom seems safe for home monitoring of patients with a mild to moderate Covid-19.