Stephanie Q Ko 1 , Benjamin M Y Hooi 1 , Chieh-Yang Koo 2 , Daniel W P Chor 3 , Zheng Jye Ling 4 , Yen-Lin Chee 5 , Wei-Ying Jen 6 Show Affiliations »
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore has largely centred around migrant worker dormitories, comprising over 90% of all cases in the country. Dormitories are home to a culturally and linguistically distinct, low-income population, without on-site healthcare after-hours. The primary objective of this study was to assess the engagement and utilisation of a simple, low-cost, accessible, mobile health solution for remote self-reporting of vital parameters in dormitory residents with COVID-19. DESIGN: Retrospective review of medical care. SETTING: Two large migrant worker dormitories with a combined population of 31 546. PARTICIPANTS: All COVID-19-affected residents housed in dormitories during the study period. INTERVENTION: All residents were taught to use a chat assistant to self-report their temperature, heart rate and oxygen saturations. Results flowed into a dashboard, which alerted clinicians of abnormal results. OUTCOMES: The primary outcome measure was engagement rate. This was derived from the total number of residents who registered on the platform over the total number of COVID-19-affected residents in the dormitories during the study period. Secondary outcome measures included outcomes of the alerts and subsequent escalations of care. RESULTS: 800 of the 931 COVID-19-affected residents (85.9%) engaged with the platform to log a total of 12 511 discrete episodes of vital signs. Among 372 abnormal readings, 96 teleconsultations were initiated, of which 7 (1.8%) were escalated to emergency services and 18 (4.9%) were triaged to earlier physical medical review on-site. CONCLUSIONS: A chat-assistant-based self-reporting platform is an effective and safe community-based intervention to monitor marginalised populations with distinct cultural and linguistic backgrounds, living communally and affected by COVID-19. Lessons learnt from this approach may be applied to develop safe and cost-effective telemedicine solutions across similar settings. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.
OBJECTIVES: The COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore has largely centred around migrant worker dormitories, comprising over 90% of all cases in the country. Dormitories are home to a culturally and linguistically distinct, low-income population, without on-site healthcare after-hours. The primary objective of this study was to assess the engagement and utilisation of a simple, low-cost, accessible, mobile health solution for remote self-reporting of vital parameters in dormitory residents with COVID-19 . DESIGN: Retrospective review of medical care. SETTING: Two large migrant worker dormitories with a combined population of 31 546. PARTICIPANTS : All COVID-19 -affected residents housed in dormitories during the study period. INTERVENTION: All residents were taught to use a chat assistant to self-report their temperature, heart rate and oxygen saturations. Results flowed into a dashboard, which alerted clinicians of abnormal results. OUTCOMES: The primary outcome measure was engagement rate. This was derived from the total number of residents who registered on the platform over the total number of COVID-19 -affected residents in the dormitories during the study period. Secondary outcome measures included outcomes of the alerts and subsequent escalations of care. RESULTS: 800 of the 931 COVID-19 -affected residents (85.9%) engaged with the platform to log a total of 12 511 discrete episodes of vital signs. Among 372 abnormal readings, 96 teleconsultations were initiated, of which 7 (1.8%) were escalated to emergency services and 18 (4.9%) were triaged to earlier physical medical review on-site. CONCLUSIONS: A chat-assistant-based self-reporting platform is an effective and safe community-based intervention to monitor marginalised populations with distinct cultural and linguistic backgrounds, living communally and affected by COVID-19 . Lessons learnt from this approach may be applied to develop safe and cost-effective telemedicine solutions across similar settings. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.
Entities: Chemical
Disease
Gene
Species
Keywords:
health informatics; public health; telemedicine; world wide web technology
Year: 2020
PMID： 33384398 DOI： 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-042647
Source DB: PubMed Journal: BMJ Open ISSN： 2044-6055 Impact factor: 2.692