Najla J Alhraiwil, Sinaa Al-Aqeel, Amjad F AlFaleh, Alaa A AlAgeel, Mostafa A AlAbed, Walid A Al-Shroby
{"title":"新冠肺炎疫情对沙特937电话医疗咨询服务的影响","authors":"Najla J Alhraiwil, Sinaa Al-Aqeel, Amjad F AlFaleh, Alaa A AlAgeel, Mostafa A AlAbed, Walid A Al-Shroby","doi":"10.1155/2022/4181322","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The impact of COVID-19 on healthcare services has been profound. One major impact has been underutilization of traditional healthcare services by patients. In 2020, the Saudi Ministry of Health (MoH) started offering general COVID-19 enquiries, education, and medical and psychological consultations around the clock via their 937-Call Center. Given this major change, there was a need to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Call Center services, specifically medical consultations, to suggest future recommendations for patient care optimization. This descriptive study analyzed routinely collected data on the 937-Call Center service between March 2020 and September 2020. Data were reviewed, coded, verified, and analyzed using SPSS v22. There was a 296% increase in the number of calls received by the 937-Call Center in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The majority of calls received in 2020 were general medical enquiries (98.41%), but about three million COVID-19-specific enquiries were also received in 2020. The increased number of calls was managed by accepting volunteers to handle calls: an average of 236 volunteers per month, handling about 20% of the total call volume. The majority of volunteers were physicians but with the presence of pharmacists, psychologists, and specialized healthcare workers such as nutritionists. Utilization of the 937-Call Center increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that it has been an effective strategy for combatting the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia. Further research is recommended to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on public awareness of the 937-Call Center and other health-related mobile apps.</p>","PeriodicalId":45630,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications","volume":"2022 ","pages":"4181322"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8764273/pdf/","citationCount":"4","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Impact of COVID-19 on the 937 Telephone Medical Consultation Service in Saudi Arabia.\",\"authors\":\"Najla J Alhraiwil, Sinaa Al-Aqeel, Amjad F AlFaleh, Alaa A AlAgeel, Mostafa A AlAbed, Walid A Al-Shroby\",\"doi\":\"10.1155/2022/4181322\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p><p>The impact of COVID-19 on healthcare services has been profound. One major impact has been underutilization of traditional healthcare services by patients. In 2020, the Saudi Ministry of Health (MoH) started offering general COVID-19 enquiries, education, and medical and psychological consultations around the clock via their 937-Call Center. Given this major change, there was a need to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Call Center services, specifically medical consultations, to suggest future recommendations for patient care optimization. This descriptive study analyzed routinely collected data on the 937-Call Center service between March 2020 and September 2020. Data were reviewed, coded, verified, and analyzed using SPSS v22. There was a 296% increase in the number of calls received by the 937-Call Center in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The majority of calls received in 2020 were general medical enquiries (98.41%), but about three million COVID-19-specific enquiries were also received in 2020. The increased number of calls was managed by accepting volunteers to handle calls: an average of 236 volunteers per month, handling about 20% of the total call volume. The majority of volunteers were physicians but with the presence of pharmacists, psychologists, and specialized healthcare workers such as nutritionists. Utilization of the 937-Call Center increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that it has been an effective strategy for combatting the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia. Further research is recommended to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on public awareness of the 937-Call Center and other health-related mobile apps.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":45630,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications\",\"volume\":\"2022 \",\"pages\":\"4181322\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":3.1000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-01-18\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8764273/pdf/\",\"citationCount\":\"4\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/4181322\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"2022/1/1 0:00:00\",\"PubModel\":\"eCollection\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/4181322","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2022/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES","Score":null,"Total":0}
Impact of COVID-19 on the 937 Telephone Medical Consultation Service in Saudi Arabia.
The impact of COVID-19 on healthcare services has been profound. One major impact has been underutilization of traditional healthcare services by patients. In 2020, the Saudi Ministry of Health (MoH) started offering general COVID-19 enquiries, education, and medical and psychological consultations around the clock via their 937-Call Center. Given this major change, there was a need to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Call Center services, specifically medical consultations, to suggest future recommendations for patient care optimization. This descriptive study analyzed routinely collected data on the 937-Call Center service between March 2020 and September 2020. Data were reviewed, coded, verified, and analyzed using SPSS v22. There was a 296% increase in the number of calls received by the 937-Call Center in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The majority of calls received in 2020 were general medical enquiries (98.41%), but about three million COVID-19-specific enquiries were also received in 2020. The increased number of calls was managed by accepting volunteers to handle calls: an average of 236 volunteers per month, handling about 20% of the total call volume. The majority of volunteers were physicians but with the presence of pharmacists, psychologists, and specialized healthcare workers such as nutritionists. Utilization of the 937-Call Center increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that it has been an effective strategy for combatting the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia. Further research is recommended to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on public awareness of the 937-Call Center and other health-related mobile apps.
期刊介绍:
The overall aim of the International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications is to bring together science and applications of medical practice and medical care at a distance as well as their supporting technologies such as, computing, communications, and networking technologies with emphasis on telemedicine techniques and telemedicine applications. It is directed at practicing engineers, academic researchers, as well as doctors, nurses, etc. Telemedicine is an information technology that enables doctors to perform medical consultations, diagnoses, and treatments, as well as medical education, away from patients. For example, doctors can remotely examine patients via remote viewing monitors and sound devices, and/or sampling physiological data using telecommunication. Telemedicine technology is applied to areas of emergency healthcare, videoconsulting, telecardiology, telepathology, teledermatology, teleophthalmology, teleoncology, telepsychiatry, teledentistry, etc. International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications will highlight the continued growth and new challenges in telemedicine, applications, and their supporting technologies, for both application development and basic research. Papers should emphasize original results or case studies relating to the theory and/or applications of telemedicine. Tutorial papers, especially those emphasizing multidisciplinary views of telemedicine, are also welcome. International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications employs a paperless, electronic submission and evaluation system to promote a rapid turnaround in the peer-review process.