Off the Shelf: Rapid Deployment of an Emergency Department Telemedicine Platform Using Readily Available Consumer...

For 20 years, telemedicine has been waiting in the wings for its time in the spotlight. The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with its emphasis on personal protective equipment (PPE) and reducing high-risk contacts, was the catalyst needed to bring telemedicine into mainstream consciousness and acceptance.

We first review some of the key factors that precipitated this abrupt alteration of the perception of telemedicine. We then detail the creation of a department-wide telemedicine network using off-the-shelf consumer products. Our goal was to very rapidly install a system that was familiar to end-users for the purpose of reducing high-risk contacts and conserving PPE. Sourcing from the consumer realm proved to be advantageous over enterprise-level equipment when these goals were desired.

After a rollout of 1.5 weeks from zero to fully operational, we showed an immediate decrease in high-risk contacts and PPE use. All 80 rooms plus all triage areas in our department were outfitted with Apple iPads running Zoom. User adoption was high and telemedicine use increased from ∼17 to ∼90 instances a day, a 429% increase. We saw a decrease in high-risk contacts of about 75%, with a concomitant cost savings in PPE.

We propose that the use of consumer products sourced from local vendors is a viable solution for telemedicine systems focusing on speed, reducing costs, and ease of deployment. Future work will focus on studying its performance characteristics vs. other systems in an evolving landscape.