Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Our journals
    • Clinical Medicine
    • Future Healthcare Journal
  • Subject collections
  • About the RCP
  • Contact us

Future Healthcare Journal

  • FHJ Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
  • Author guidance
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit online
  • About FHJ
    • Scope
    • Editorial board
    • Policies
    • Information for reviewers
    • Advertising

User menu

  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
RCP Journals
Home
  • Log in
  • Home
  • Our journals
    • Clinical Medicine
    • Future Healthcare Journal
  • Subject collections
  • About the RCP
  • Contact us
Advanced

Future Healthcare Journal

futurehosp Logo
  • FHJ Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
  • Author guidance
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit online
  • About FHJ
    • Scope
    • Editorial board
    • Policies
    • Information for reviewers
    • Advertising

‘Hello’ – the humble telephone re-emerges among the COVID-19 pandemic

Manish Motwani
Download PDF
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7861/fhj.Let-7-2-3
Future Healthc J June 2020
Manish Motwani
Manchester Heart Centre, Manchester, UK
Roles: Consultant cardiologist
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
Loading

Editor – I read with interest the paper by Hayes describing equipment needed to work from home in medicine.1 I agree with the emphasis placed on the simple telephone over more hyped high-tech solutions which the NHS digital infrastructure was never pre-equipped with.

Recently, healthcare technology buzzed with artificial intelligence, big-data analytics, and increasingly advanced diagnostics. By March 2020, amid a global health crisis, most technological efforts were re-directed into countering COVID-19. Big-data-analytics were used to model viral activity and guide healthcare policy; deep-learning algorithms were developed to interpret diagnostic imaging; and apps for symptom surveillance and contact tracing deployed.2 Most dramatically, there has been widespread adoption of telemedicine.3

In England, in February 2020 before COVID-19, the vast majority of primary care appointments (24 million) were conducted face-to-face (81%) with only a minority by telephone (14%) or online-video (<1%).4 However, data for March 2020 showed a significant shift from face-to-face (67%) towards telephone consults (28%). Data from NHS Digital for England shows the importance of telephone calls during the COVID-19 pandemic for primary care and for NHS 111/999 triage; the proportion of primary care appointments handled via telephone has doubled from 14% to 28% between February and March 2020. Remarkably, the shift has been towards simple telephone use rather than much vaunted online-video tools which remained at <1%. One possible reason is use of app or computer-based video services requires a degree of preparedness with these services already evaluated, installed, explained and available to users indiscriminately. Additionally, contacting vulnerable patient groups such as the elderly can be challenging via online-video services due to the more technical interface; and it also assumes widespread high-speed internet. Enter then, an old friend – the humble telephone – an easy-to-use 150-year-old technology found in almost everyone's home or pocket, familiar to young and old.

While telecommunications providers prepared for increased internet traffic, they did not expect an even greater surge in plain-old voice calls (up 35% in the USA as per Federal Communications Commission). Its dependability and ubiquity are the same reasons the phone-call remains the primary mode of contacting emergency services internationally. Indeed, between 18 March 2020 and 01 May 2020, the NHS in England triaged 533,236 phone-calls related to COVID-19 via its urgent 111 or emergency 999 numbers – arguably the telephone is still in its prime and is one of the understated heroes of the pandemic.4

  • © Royal College of Physicians 2020. All rights reserved.

References

  1. ↵
    1. Hayes
    . Working from home in medicine during coronavirus: What equipment do you need to get started and what can you do to help from home? FHJ 2020;7:163–4.
    OpenUrl
  2. ↵
    1. Ting DSW
    , Carin L, Dzau V, Wong TY. Digital technology and COVID-19. Nat Med 2020;26:459–61.
    OpenUrl
  3. ↵
    1. Hollander JE
    , Carr BG. Virtually Perfect? Telemedicine for Covid-19. N Engl J Med 2020;382:1679–81.
    OpenUrlPubMed
  4. ↵
    1. NHS digital
    . Appointments in general practice. NHS, 2020. https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/appointments-in-general-practice
View Abstract
Back to top
Previous articleNext article

Article Tools

Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Citation Tools
‘Hello’ – the humble telephone re-emerges among the COVID-19 pandemic
Manish Motwani
Future Healthc J Jun 2020, 7 (2) e7; DOI: 10.7861/fhj.Let-7-2-3

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
‘Hello’ – the humble telephone re-emerges among the COVID-19 pandemic
Manish Motwani
Future Healthc J Jun 2020, 7 (2) e7; DOI: 10.7861/fhj.Let-7-2-3
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • References
  • Info & Metrics

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • Vitamin D
  • Discharge criteria for patients with COVID-19 to long-term care facilities requires modification
  • Cardiac investigations after ischaemic stroke
Show more Letters to the editor

Similar Articles

Navigate this Journal

  • Journal Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Archive

Related Links

  • ClinMed - Home
  • FHJ - Home

Other Services

  • Advertising
futurehosp Footer Logo
  • Home
  • Journals
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
HighWire Press, Inc.

Follow Us:

  • Follow HighWire Origins on Twitter
  • Visit HighWire Origins on Facebook

Copyright © 2020 by the Royal College of Physicians