COVIDCare@Home: Lessons from a Family Medicine Led Remote Monitoring Program

Payal Agarwal, Geetha Mukerji, Celia Laur, Shivani Chandra, Nick Pimlott, Ruth Heisey, Rebecca Stovel, Elaine Goulbourne, R. Sacha Bhatia, Onil Bhattacharyya, Danielle Martin
2020 · doi:10.1101/2020.07.20.20158386
preprint OA: closed
📄 Open PDF View at publisher

Abstract

Background Virtual care for patients with COVID-19 allows providers to monitor COVID-19 positive patients with variable trajectories while reducing the risk of transmission to others and managing healthcare capacity in acute care facilities. Objective To develop and test the feasibility of a family medicine-led remote monitoring model of care (COVIDCare@Home program) to manage patients with COVID-19 in the community. Methods This multi-faceted, family medicine-led, interprofessional team-based remote monitoring program was developed at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, Ontario. A cross-sectional chart review of the first cohort of patients was conducted and learnings from the implementation of CovidCare@Home are described. Results During the study period, April 8 to May 11, 2020, there were 97 patients (average age 48.6, 62% female) with 424 recorded virtual visits with a median virtual length of stay of 8 days (IQR 5). 5.2% required escalation to an in-person visit with no patients requiring hospitalization. 16% of patients required support with mental and social health needs. Interpretations A family medicine-led, team-based remote monitoring program can safely be used to manage outpatients diagnosed with COVID-19. Attention to mental and social health needs is critical for this population. Future efforts should consider how to design programs to best support populations disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, something which primary care is well-positioned to do. Further analysis will describe the effectiveness, impact, and satisfaction with the program among patients and providers.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Citation neighborhood (sparse)

Too few in-corpus citations on either side for a chart; here are the lists.

Cites (1)

References (17)

Source provenance

crossref
last seen: 2026-05-28T01:00:09.759860+00:00
europepmc
last seen: 2026-05-19T01:45:01.086888+00:00
unpaywall
last seen: 2026-08-08T06:39:30.753600+00:00