Nearly 14 million Koreans used telemedicine in Covid-19 period

Some 13.79 million people in Korea received non-face-to-face treatment allowed temporarily to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. Neighborhood clinics provided 86 percent of non-contact services, and 81.5 percent of people who used such services were returning patients.

On Sunday, the Ministry of Health and Welfare released a report on the status and performance of non-face-to-face treatment implemented temporarily for three years from Feb. 24, 2020. Non-face-to-face treatment is temporarily allowed during a crisis alert of serious level or higher, according to the Act on the Prevention and Management of Infectious Diseases.

An analysis of non-face-to-face treatment requested for health insurance, 25,697 medical institutions provided 36.61 million non-contact services for 13.79 million people from Feb. 24, 2020, to Jan. 31, 2023.

The total included 29.25 million at-home treatments provided for confirmed Covid-19 patients.

The ministry analyzed 7.36 million cases after excluding at-home treatments for Covid-19. As a result, six million, or 81.5 percent, were for second or more treatments, with the other 1.36 million being for initial treatments. In addition, medical professionals prescribed drugs after consultation in 5.14 million cases (69.8 percent) while providing only consults in the other 2.22 million (30.2 percent).

Exactly 20,076 medical institutions, 27.8 percent of the total, participated in non-face-to-face treatment. Among them, 93.6 percent were neighborhood clinics, accounting for 86.2 percent of total treatments conducted.

“There were initial concerns about patients’ rush to large hospitals. In reality, however, small clinics took the lion’s share in providing non-contact treatments,” the ministry said.

By age group, people aged 60 or more accounted for 39.2 percent of non-contact service users, with 2.88 million, followed by the 60-69-years-old group with 1.27 million (17.3 percent), and the under-20 group with 111.2 million (15.1 percent).

By disease, hypertension accounted for 15.8 percent of the total, followed by acute bronchitis (7.5 percent) and non-complex diabetes (4.9 percent).

Based on these data, the ministry said it is necessary to institutionalize non-face-to-face treatment by revising related laws.

Among hypertension and diabetes patients who had used telephone consult and prescription services, those who used non-contact services took drugs far more consistently than those who did not use them compared to 2019 when the government did not introduce non-face-to-face treatments, the ministry said.

Also, 77.8 percent of patients and their family members who had received telephone consult and prescription services, 77.8 percent said they were “satisfied with using non-contact services,” and 87.8 percent expressed the intention to “use it again.”

There were also no serious medical accidents resulting from non-face-to-face treatment during the period when it was allowed temporarily.

Out of the total 26,503 patient safety accidents reported from 2020 to November 2022, only five were related to non-contact treatment, all of which were relatively minor, such as omission or mistakes in prescription.

“We could confirm the effectiveness and safety of non-face-to-face treatment while implementing non-contact treatment temporarily, and initial concerns about the patient rush to large hospitals were also dissolved considerably,” Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Park Min-soo said.

Park added that the government would supplement and institutionalize non-contact treatment to respect patients’ medical options and accesses better medical workers’ expertise, and both patients and medical professionals use the system with greater ease and safety.