Nationwide implementation of a centralised telemedicine platform in Singapore to fight the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction This study aims to share the experience of the Ministry of Health (Singapore) in deploying a centrally managed Telemedicine service to triage, and manage COVID-19 cases in the community during the COVID-19 Omicron wave. Material and methods Data from the deployed telemedicine system, Telemedicine Allocation and Reconciliation System, over a 14-week period (3 January 2022–10 April 2022) was analysed to determine the safety and efficacy of both the (i) National COVID-19 sorting logic algorithm and (ii) the use of a centralised telemedicine platform with privacy protection in a pandemic. Results There was a total of 47,754 children (aged 1–11 years old), 75,702 adolescents and adult patients (aged 12–69 years old) and 55,774 geriatric patients (aged > = 70 years old) who were directly managed by this platform. Amongst them, 64,961 were from the higher-risk special populations (pregnant, end-stage renal failure and immunocompromised and geriatric population). The total number of patients requiring escalations to public health institutions were 4212. This accounts for 1.32%, 3.00% and 2.35% of the children, teenagers and adults, and geriatric population respectively.