Context The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy is the major concern of Public Health in 2020: measures of containment were progressively expanded, limiting Outpatients’ visit. Objective We have developed and applied an emergency plan, tailored for Outpatients with endocrine diseases. Design Cross-sectional study from March to May 2020. Setting Referral University-Hospital center. Patients 1262 patients in 8 weeks. Interventions The emergency plan is based upon the endocrine triage, the stay-safe procedures and the tele-Endo. During endocrine triage every patient was contacted by phone to assess health status and define if the visit will be performed face-to-face (F2F) or by tele-Medicine (tele-Endo). In case of F2F, targeted stay-safe procedures have been adopted. Tele-Endo, performed by phone and email, is dedicated to COVID-19-infected patients, to elderly or frail people, or to those with a stable disease. Main outcome measure To assess efficacy of the emergency plan to continue the follow-up of Outpatients. Results The number of visits cancelled after endocrine triage (9%) is lower than that cancelled independently by the patients (37%, p < 0.001); the latter reduced from 47 to 19% during the weeks of lockdown ( p = 0.032). 86% of patients contacted by endocrine-triage received a clinical response (F2F and tele-Endo visits). F2F visit was offered especially to young patients; tele-Endo was applied to 63% of geriatric patients ( p < 0.001), visits’ outcome was similar between young and aged patients. Conclusions The emergency plan respects the WHO recommendations to limit viral spread and is useful to continue follow-up for outpatients with endocrine diseases.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, Telemedicine, Endocrine unit, Hub-spoke organization, 【초록키워드】 Efficacy, lockdown, outcome, Italy, viral spread, cross-sectional study, COVID-19 outbreak, Patient, Referral, Health status, Follow-up, disease, patients, Outpatient, Endocrine, clinical response, outcome measure, measure, Endocrine diseases, Public, Context, recommendation, objective, limit, setting, Result, performed, the patient, applied, reduced, adopted, the WHO, offered, 【제목키워드】 lockdown, Outpatient, clinic, single-center,