People turn to telemedicine amid coronavirus concerns

U.S.A — People are turning to telemedicine amid concerns about the coronavirus.

Action News Jax reporter Christy Turner spoke to a local provider about how the virtual visit works. They say they’re getting flooded with calls from patients.

HOW IT WORKS:

Instead of sitting in a waiting room at a hospital or your doctor’s office, the virtual visit option lets you see a doctor from the comfort of your own home. All you need is a tablet, computer, or smartphone.

Turner went through a mock virtual visit.

The medical professional asked these questions during the mock virtual visit:

"Hi. How are you doing today? My name is Miss Rutledge. You scheduled an appointment because you’re not feeling well. What’s going on? What was your name ma’am?

"Christy. Is it OK if I call you Christy or Miss Christy?

"How are you doing Christy? Tell me what’s going on?

"Really? OK. Have you traveled outside of the country in the past 14 days?

"OK. Have you been in contact with anyone confirmed with COVID-19?

"What do you think? What’s going on?

"What symptoms you got? How high is your fever? Are you taking anything? Are you taking anything that will bring the fever down?

"Did you say you had a sore throat?

"This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to have you hold on. I’ve got to make a few calls. It doesn’t sound like you’re in that risk category, but there’s a lot of people to help us make our decision.

"Do you have any questions before I step away? Are you scared?

"Give us one second. I’ll be right back.

"Hey Christy. I’m back. I actually made a call over to our main hospital and we speak to a whole team there called UF Health Infection Prevention Team. They gave us some instruction.

“It looks like you are not someone that needs to be tested right now for COVID-19, but it means we want you to come in so we can kind of do some swabs on you, in case there’s other viruses that could be causing this. It could be the common cold, could be the flu. Are you able to come in today?”

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