Telemedicine and Online Platforms as an Opportunity to Optimise Qualitative Data Collection, Explore and Understand Disease Pathways in a Novel Pandemic Like COVID-19

This article explores digital technology used in the health sector today. There are several ways digital technology is being used for quantitative study aims during the current COVID-19 Pandemic e.g. online symptom checkers. The knowledge gap in COVID-19 as in all novel conditions, consist of both quantitative and qualitative attributes. Digital tool use is prevalent during the COVID-19 Pandemic but most of the data being collected is quantitative in nature. We therefore recommend taking advantage of this telemedicine era and explore optimisation of qualitative data collection, for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the phenomenon.