Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Nov 1;27(6):544-553.
doi: 10.1097/MCP.0000000000000821.

Telehealth and virtual health monitoring in cystic fibrosis

Tamara Vagg  1   2   3 , Shivanthan Shanthikumar  4   5   6 , David Morrissy  1   2   3 , Wendy W Chapman  7 , Barry J Plant  1   2   3 , Sarath Ranganathan  4   5   6
Affiliations
Review

Telehealth and virtual health monitoring in cystic fibrosis

Tamara Vagg et al. Curr Opin Pulm Med. .

Abstract

Purpose of review: At many institutions, the Covid-19 pandemic made it necessary to rapidly change the way services are provided to patients, including those with cystic fibrosis (CF). The purpose of this review is to explore the past, present and future of telehealth and virtual monitoring in CF and to highlight certain challenges/considerations in developing such services.

Recent findings: The Covid-19 pandemic has proven that telehealth and virtual monitoring are a feasible means for safely providing services to CF patients when traditional care is not possible. However, both telehealth and virtual monitoring can also provide further support in the future in a post-covid era through a hybrid-model incorporating traditional care, remote data collection and sophisticated platforms to manage and share data with CF teams.

Summary: We provide a detailed overview of telehealth and virtual monitoring including examples of how paediatric and adult CF services adapted to the need for rapid change. Such services have proven popular with people with CF meaning that co-design with stakeholders will likely improve systems further. In the future, telehealth and virtual monitoring will become more sophisticated by harnessing increasingly powerful technologies such as artificial intelligence, connected monitoring devices and wearables. In this review, we harmonise definitions and terminologies before highlighting considerations and limitations for the future of telehealth and virtual monitoring in CF.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Maheu M, Whitten P, Allen A. E-Health, Telehealth, and Telemedicine: a guide to startup and success. New York, USA: John Wiley & Sons; 2002.
    1. Wittson CL, Affleck DC, Johnson V. Two-way television in group therapy. Ment Hosp 1961; 12:22–23.
    1. Willemain TR, Mark RG. Models of remote healthcare systems. Biomed Sci Instrument 1971; 8:9–17.
    1. McLendon K. E-commerce and HIM: ready or not, here it comes. J AHIMA 2000; 71:22–23.
    1. Fatehi F, Wootton R. Telemedicine, telehealth or e-health? A bibliometric analysis of the trends in the use of these terms. J Telemed Telecare 2012; 18:460–464.