Telemedicine During A Crisis: Challenges, Opportunities & Way Forward At A Tertiary Care Hospital (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadia Masood ◽  
Zanaib Samad ◽  
Sarah Nadeem ◽  
Unzela Ghulam

BACKGROUND Telemedicine is utilized to deliver health care services remotely. Recently, it is well established due to pandemics because it can help the patients get required supportive care while minimizing their hospital exposure. In the future, it will continue to be used as a convenient, cost-effective patient care modality. OBJECTIVE The objectives were to identify physicians' challenges during teleconsultations and recognize the opportunities and strengths of this modality during the pandemic in a lower-income country. METHODS This cross-sectional study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital. The self-made questionnaire was filled through an online medium and responses were recorded on a five-point Likert scale. RESULTS A total of 83 participants were enrolled in this study. Most of them were Associate professors (29.8%), Assistant professors (26.2%), the ratio of the females was (52.4%) greater than males (,47.6%). 46 (54.8%) have laid between the age group 30-40 years. Pediatricians and senior instructors faced more difficulty in using telemedicine. The ones having clinical experience of fewer than 15 years or categorized in the age of 50-60 years faced challenges while using this modality. CONCLUSIONS During the current pandemic, situation telemedicine is the only glimmer of light to provide better quality health care. Telemedicine is an innovative strategy and it is important to understand the perception of physicians about it. Incomplete and inadequate infrastructure and attitude of the physicians is the main obstacle toward successful implementation of telemedicine. Successful installation and deployment of this technology require a complete grasp of the process among physicians.

Author(s):  
Jyothsna Guduru ◽  
T. Rohit Singh ◽  
Somnath Motgi ◽  
Jamuna Rani

Background: Many studies have investigated the prevalence of self medication practices. World health organization promotes the practice of self medication for relief of symptoms without medical consultation to reduce the burden on health care services. Majority of the individuals in developing country like India have poor knowledge about appropriate use of self mediction, but still they practice taking it without knowing the benefits and risk factors.Methods: The present study was a cross sectional study aimed to gather information about prevalence of self medication in common illness among non health care professionals in a tertiary care hospital. The sample size comprised of 215 participants. Data was collected through an open ended semi structured questionnaire. All the descriptive data was coded, entered in micro soft excel and analysed with frequencies and proportions.Results: The prevelance of self medication was found to be 96%. Near about 30% of participants got information from pharmacist regarding self medication. 27% participants followed allopathy medicine.16% participants used becosules and mucaine gel for mouth and throat ulcers.26% participants used D-cold total for cough and cold.15% participants used dolo 650mg for fever and headache.41.7% participants used ciprofloxacin for ear and eye infections.26.6% participants used gelusil for GI infection .25.7% participants used calamine lotion for skin infections and 48% participants used turmeric for other minor ailments as self medication medicines.Conclusions: As the prevalence of self medication is high among educated participants. The present study suggest the growing trend of self medication has to be prevented by applying strong policies and prohibiting the supply of medicines without a valid prescription.


Author(s):  
Karavadi Sri Sai Vidusha ◽  
Margaret Menzil

Background: Healthcare providers (HCPs) have been identified as the most common vehicle for transmission of hospital acquired infections (HAIs) from patient to patient and within the healthcare environment. Hand hygiene has been identified as the single most important, simplest and least expensive means of preventing HAIs. This study was conducted to assess the knowledge of hand hygiene among healthcare providers in a tertiary care hospital in Bengaluru.Methods: A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted among all the health care providers who have been working in the hospital for more than one year. Total 122 health care providers were included in the study. A semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire was developed and used to obtain information on respondent’s socio-demographic characteristics, and knowledge of hand hygiene. For collecting data in this study, the World Health Organization (WHO) "Hand Hygiene Knowledge Questionnaire "revised 2009 edition was used. Descriptive statistics was used as necessary.Results: A total of 122 health care providers participated in the study. Among them 78 (63.9%) have received formal training in hand washing. The mean age of the study participants was 29.11±8.6 years. Majority opined that hand rubbing is required before palpation of the abdomen (86.9%) knowledge about hand hygiene was found to be moderate in majority of the study subjects (144 out of 200, 74%).Conclusions: In the present study the knowledge on hand hygiene among health care providers is moderate it highlights the importance of improving the current training programs targeting hand hygiene practices among health care providers.


Author(s):  
Shivani Sinha ◽  
Sanjay Kumar ◽  
Sanjay Kumar Chaudhary ◽  
Setu Sinha ◽  
Varsha Singh ◽  
...  

Background: Vaccines are safe, simple and one of the most cost-effective way to save and improve the lives of children. The World Health Organization launched the Global Programme of Immunization in 1974 and Government of India launched the same in India on 1st January, 1978, with a view to provide protection to the children against disease and to reduce infant mortality rate.Methods: A hospital based cross sectional study was carried out in the immunization clinic of a tertiary care hospital (IGIMS) of Patna district. The study unit were children of age group 0 to 12 months attending the immunisation clinic of IGIMS Patna. The study was conducted from January 2017 to December 2017, for a period of 12 months.Results: About 40% of children were fully immunized, about 73.3% were having immunization card.Conclusions: Immunizations is one of the biggest public health achievements of the last century, saving millions of lives and preventing illness and lifelong disability in millions more. Many childhood diseases which is now preventable by vaccines often resulted in hospitalization, death or lifelong consequences only a few decades ago. Without immunizations, serious outbreaks of many of the diseases we are now protected from can reoccur. There is a need to create awareness regarding the importance of vaccination, as well as the consequences of partial immunization, parents views must also be taken into consideration when the programme is planned, especially those with a lower educational level.


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