Purpose : Telehealth consultations will be increasingly used to assess eye patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. An audit was performed at a major quaternary referral centre for Ophthalmology in Sydney, Australia. This study assesses the outcomes of teleconsultation in an acute ophthalmic clinic setting. Methods : 242 patients with an Acute Ophthalmic Service clinic appointment at the Sydney Hospital & Sydney Eye Hospital between 19 March 2020 and 9 April 2020 inclusive were included in this study. These patients were separated into two study groups - 162 patients attended their pre-arranged appointment, whereas 80 patients had their appointment th th changed to a telehealth consultation. A final year Ophthalmology Registrar performed an online medical records review of all patients and selected 80 patients for teleconsultation, following which re-presentation rate and reason for re-presentation was collected each month for five months for the two patient populations. The primary outcome measure was the rate of re-presentation and reason for representation to the Eye Emergency Department. Results : There were no significant differences in the number of re-presentations after each month during the five months (P = 0.166, 0.113, 0.139, 0.266 and 0.390 at each month). There were also no significant differences in the reason for re-presentation after each month during the five months (P = 0.999, 0.999, 0.872, 0.663 and 0.517 at each month). Conclusions : There were similar short-term outcomes between the two study groups suggesting that telehealth is a viable alternative for the provision of acute care to appropriately selected patients.
Telehealth in an acute ophthalmic setting during COVID-19