Can Teledentistry Improve the Monitoring of Patients during the Covid-19 Dissemination? A Descriptive Pilot Study

Amerigo Giudice, Selene Barone, Danila Muraca, Fiorella Averta, Federica Diodati, Alessandro Antonelli and Leonzio Fortunato
Additional contact information
Amerigo Giudice: School of Dentistry, Department of Health Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Selene Barone: School of Dentistry, Department of Health Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Danila Muraca: School of Dentistry, Department of Health Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Fiorella Averta: School of Dentistry, Department of Health Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Federica Diodati: School of Dentistry, Department of Health Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Alessandro Antonelli: School of Dentistry, Department of Health Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Leonzio Fortunato: School of Dentistry, Department of Health Sciences, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 10, 1-9

Abstract: The aim of this pilot study was to describe the advantages of telemedicine (TM) in dental practice during the current national emergency condition due to the Covid-19 dissemination. At Department of Oral Surgery and Pathology—Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, regional reference center for Covid-19—two groups of patients were determined: patients with urgent conditions (group U) and patients in follow-up (group F). Both groups were instructed to implement remote consultations using a messaging service (WhatsApp Messenger, WhatsApp Inc., Mountain View, California, USA) to send photos. A total of 418 photos were collected by 57 patients. Thirty-four photos were obtained by five patients in the U group after surgical procedures. All patients sent photos on the established evening, except for two patients who sent two photos outside the set days. In the F group, 384 photos were collected by 52 patients. None of them sent more photos than the number that was established by the protocol. Telemedicine allowed a monitoring of all patients, reducing costs and limiting human contact, decreasing the risk of Covid-19 dissemination.

Keywords: telemedicine; Covid-19; dentistry; WhatsApp; teledentistry; dental public health; community dentistry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/10/3399/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/10/3399/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:10:p:3399-:d:357571

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().