Covid 19: a remote assessment in primary care
What you need to know A 37 year old healthcare assistant develops a cough. Next day, she wakes with a fever (which she measures at 37.4degC) and shortness of breath. She manages her condition at home for several days, experiencing increasing tiredness, loss of appetite, and a persistent dry cough. On the fifth day of her illness, she develops mild diarrhoea, and her chest feels quite tight. She takes her temperature, which has gone up to 38.1degC. Feeling unwell, she contacts her GP surgery for advice. She would like someone to listen to her chest, but the receptionist tells her not to come to the surgery and offers her the choice of a telephone or video consultation. She was previously well apart from mild asthma (on occasional salbutamol) Five years ago, she took citalopram for anxiety. She is a single parent of three children. Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (covid 19) is an urgent and spreading threat whose clinical and epidemiological characteristics are still being documented.12 With a view to containing covid 19, a shift from in person to remote consulting is occurring. Clinicians are thus faced with a new disease and a new way of interacting with patients. This article will present some guiding principles on how to choose between telephone and video appointments, how to conduct a "query covid" consultation remotely, and considerations when arranging follow up and next steps. It does not cover remote triage or how to set up
BMJ