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  • Response to: ‘COVID-19 pandemic: an opportunity to assess the utility of telemedicine in patients with rheumatic diseases’ by Lopez-Medina et al

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Correspondence response
Response to: ‘COVID-19 pandemic: an opportunity to assess the utility of telemedicine in patients with rheumatic diseases’ by Lopez-Medina et al
  1. Emanuele Bozzalla Cassione1,2,
  2. Giovanni Zanframundo1,2,
  3. Alessandro Biglia1,2,
  4. Veronica Codullo1,2,
  5. Carlomaurizio Montecucco1,2,
  6. Lorenzo Cavagna1,2
  1. 1 Rheumatology, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Lombardia, Italy
  2. 2 Department of Internal Medicine and Medical Therapeutics, University of Pavia, Pavia, Lombardia, Italy
  1. Correspondence to Professor Carlomaurizio Montecucco, Department of Rheumatology, IRCCS Foundation Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia 27100, Italy; montecucco{at}smatteo.pv.it

https://doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-218070

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    We thank Lopez-Medina et al 1 for their comment on our paper and for sharing their experience with phone consultations.2 Telemedicine, in the past years, has been progressively implemented into medical practice. However, it has not been able to fully take root into routine medical care yet. The COVID-19 pandemic provided the opportunity to take a further step towards the integration between virtual and traditional medical assistance in many medical specialties including rheumatology. The restriction rules, taken over by numerous countries, together with the necessity of assuring a proper continuity of care, have forced us to adopt telemedicine tools in our routine involving chronic patients. To overcome legal matters of privacy and data protection, we have recently set up a …

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    Footnotes

    • EBC and GZ are joint first authors.

    • Handling editor Josef S Smolen

    • Contributors All authors wrote the response letter.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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