Volume 1, Issue 1 (2022) – 5 articles
Cover Picture: During the COVID-19 pandemic, progress has been made in the adoption of telemedicine to screen for infected people, oversee affected subjects, and ensure continuity of care of chronically ill people. However, the use of telemedicine was not homogeneous across the various countries hit by the pandemic. This was due to differences in the awareness of the importance of telemedicine, variability in the quality of the infrastructures, level of informatics literacy of healthcare professionals and patients, and reimbursement schemes and plans. The experience collected during the COVID-19 pandemic should help strengthen available solutions and develop a more coordinated general strategy to favor the implementation of telemedicine at scale in the healthcare system. Achieving this goal will help prepare well for future pandemic waves and ultimately improve the management of COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients. In particular, second-line home-based telemedicine-based solutions serving as “virtual hospitals” may help reduce the burden on the first line, particularly emergency departments and intensive care units.
