In addition, it has the option to integrate with around 180 third party apps for increased productivity-including electronic health records. It allows for real-time collaborative sharing and editing of Word documents, PowerPoint slides and Excel worksheets. Microsoft Teams is highly organised, customizable and works seamlessly with other Microsoft Office apps including Microsoft Access and Microsoft Share. Software and technology professionals have moved to its use for conferences conducted over geographic distances and remote participation. It is rapidly gaining ground for collaborative web conferencing. This functional offering from Microsoft has recently replaced Skype for Business. Healthcare compliance only available at ‘Enterprise’ tier. Under the scanner for data encryption issues Not supportive of third party applications Platform not tailored for healthcare system Highly compartmentalise, steep learning curve Mobile friendliness-start meeting on smart phoneĮxtensive third part app integration. This article explores the most commonly used virtual platforms available to facilitate a virtual MDT setup in a short time span and reports the benefits and pitfalls of each in a layman-term format.įree version works well for most situations While the global healthcare systems have been slowly moving towards virtual health applications, the COVID pandemic has accelerated their applicability and use, with the hope that optimal services can be provided in time-sensitive medical decision-making. Many consumer offerings have made audio-visual communications a normalised part of daily social connectivity. Telemedicine and virtual technology have allowed the continuation of crucial MDT meetings in a time of social distancing. Given the unusual and fluid circumstances of the ongoing pandemic, virtual health has taken a large step forward in playing a vital role in the care of patients. With the guidelines to avoid gatherings necessary to prevent transmission during the active COVID pandemic, MDTs have had to resort to alternative strategies to ensure that critical patient care is not affected, while continuing to ensure protection of the HCP community. Multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meetings form the core of patient care in the UK and consist of specialists of diverse medical backgrounds and roles providing their expert opinions on specific patient management. One of the first letters from Sir Steven Simon and Amanda Pritchard announced that emergency admissions, cancer treatment and other clinically urgent care should continue unaffected. This marked the beginning of rapidly changing and updated policies, guidelines and recommendations issued on a daily basis by the Royal Colleges and Health Education England (HEE) for HCP working through this crisis. Ĭonsequent to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Health Service (NHS) declared a Level 4 Incident on 30 January 2020. To set a benchmark, approximately 21% of HCP were infected in the SARS epidemic of 2002. In the setting of a highly transmissible virus, preventing the exposure of healthcare personnel (HCP) at the frontline of this battle is paramount, to ensure the continued working of the healthcare system that is transitioning from daily business to pandemic control. While still unclear, the WHO estimates the R-0 of this novel coronavirus to be between 2 and 2.5. According to modelling by researchers at the University of Oxford based on ‘susceptibility-infected-recovered model’ of COVID-19, as much as half the population of UK may already be infected. At the time this report is being written, 2 months later, we have 143,468 cases with an estimated case fatality rate (CFR) of 13.6%, not accounting for the asymptomatic or undiagnosed individuals. The United Kingdom (UK) reported its first coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) positive case on 31 January 2020. The SARV-Co-V2 virus has the whole world in the clutches of a global pandemic. A total of 213 countries are affected so far, with over 2,700,000 confirmed cases and over 187,000 deaths.
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