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Telemedicine is the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology. The advantages of telemedicine include reduced travel time/cost and enhanced access to healthcare. The coronavirus pandemic in 2020 has necessitated the rapid implementation of remote consultations across all healthcare platforms, in most cases without any formal training. We present an educational framework for conducting telephone consultations in secondary care to help fill this gap. There are five key steps in a telephone consultation; patient introduction, information gathering, establishing a working diagnosis and plan for clinical care, planning the next step and closing the consultation. By focusing on what each step entails, this paper aims to help those new to telemedicine techniques and those responsible for training them, to shorten the learning curve.
CPD/Clinical Relevance: This article aims to help clinicians become proficient and comfortable in conducting telephone consultations by providing a structure to the consultation which they can customize to their specific setting.
Article
Telemedicine is the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology.1 This includes interactions via telephone, video consultations and email communications. Telephone consultations are widely used and are an essential element of modern patient-centred healthcare, with approximately 25% of consultations estimated to be conducted via telephone in general medical practice.2
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, all elective NHS procedures and appointments were cancelled in mid-March 2020.3 This created a sudden halt in traditional methods of patient care, with the rapid implementation of remote consultations across all healthcare platforms. In many regions, dentists were deployed to roles involving telephone consultations, often not for dental patients, eg in NHS 111, family liaison, as well as dental triage calls.
Lack of training4 in remote consultations can lead to large variation in clinicians' behaviour over the telephone.5 Improved training can reduce variation and improve the quality of the consultation for both patient and clinician.
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