Synchronous Telephone-Based Consultations in Teledentistry: Preliminary Experience of the Telehealth Brazil Platform.

Abstract

Background: The Brazilian National Health System (NHS) has incorporated telehealth to improve the quality of care in recent decades. Among the actions taken, teleconsultations have been offered to support diagnosis and decision-making for health professionals.

Methods: This cross-sectional study aimed to summarize the preliminary experience of a telephone-first consultation for oral health issues available for dentists and physicians from primary health care (PHC).

Results: The study sample was 385 teleconsultations with oral health questions requested from all Brazil sent from May 2018 to July 2019, majority by dentists 83.2% (n = 332). Oral medicine was the main reason for teleconsultation (50.9%). Resolution in PHC was considered possible in 57.1% of cases (n = 220).

Conclusions: It was concluded that a telephone-first consultation may be useful to improve the resolvability and the quality of care in the PHC on oral health issues. The teledentistry allows the resolution of oral issues in PHC, avoiding the displacement of patients to more distant specialized centers. Teledentistry could be more useful in the actual coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.