Telemedicine solutions for patients in intensive care unit with Covid-19 in Russia

Introduction: SARS-CoV-2 impacted Russia later than many other countries. The government had time to adopt appropriate measures to mitigate the impact of the emerging outbreak of infection. To help Russian physicians the Russian Ministry of Health set up a Federal Center (FC) at the Sechenov University (Moscow) to provide 24/7 virtual support for intensive care unit (ICU) physicians in 85 Russian regions. All COVID-19 hospitals were recommended to submit medical records of critically ill patients to the FC giving urgent advice(within two hours) on the antiviral therapy and critical care management. Aim: To evaluate the number of patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units who required virtual care in Russia. Material and methods: In a retrospective study, we collected medical records of the consecutive ICU patients submitted by the local COVID-19 hospitals to FC between March 16 to December 31, 2020. Results: Since the beginning we were performing up to 250–300 remote consultations per day, and their total number has now reached around 27,500. (Fig. 1) Medical records were received from the hospitals located in 82 geographic regions in eleven clock zones of Russia. Conclusion: Our findings shows that a great number of physicians are in need of an urgent advice with a critical ill patients and it proves that telemedicine is a the most rapid way to receive highly qualified care for managing patients.