key: cord-0841551-19l2u2xt
authors: Wright, Robert C.; Partovi, Nilufar; Levy, Robert D.
title: Necessity is the mother of invention: Rapid implementation of virtual health care in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic in a lung transplant clinic
date: 2020-09-20
journal: Clin Transplant
DOI: 10.1111/ctr.14062
sha: 4d7a71ff6527a254044e7e4f1d82eec6eab2f531
doc_id: 841551
cord_uid: 19l2u2xt

nan

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated rapid changes in healthcare delivery. Historically, uptake of virtual health care (VH) has been low, especially in specialized clinics; for example, 0.5% of all billable services were provided virtually in Canada in 2015. 1 Prior to March 2020, fewer than 5% of all patient visits in our clinic were by VH utilizing our health authority's approved platform; however, this platform required the patient to attend a remote healthcare facility, clearly undesirable during the pandemic. We trialed various platforms including FaceTime ® and Zoom ® . Barriers existed with both platforms such as specific device requirements, poor technology literacy, and/or privacy concerns. Ultimately, our clinic adopted a web-based platform (Doxy.me ® ) that allows for videoconferencing with end-to-end encryption between healthcare provider (HCP) and patient. Over the span of 2 weeks, our clinic transitioned to providing more than 90% of patient care utilizing VH, while maintaining usual clinic capacity of approximately 10 post-transplant patient visits per day. Patients transplanted within the previous 3 months and patients with unstable respiratory symptoms were prioritized for in-person visits.

Our clinic cares for >300 lung transplant recipients over an extended geography in western Canada; all patients are eligible for VH. Usual clinic workflow was modified to adapt to VH (Table 1) 

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