Novel Biosensors as the Key Enablers for Telemedicine Revolution to Combat COVID-19

Dear Colleagues,

Due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the field of telemedicine is undergoing a transformative change. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the US launched several emergency initiatives that have expanded Medicare and Medicaid coverage, including increasing the types of providers able to use telehealth, allowing providers more freedom to use remote patient monitoring and phone-based services, and expanding the number of sites qualifying for coverage to include homes, federally qualified health centers, and rural clinics. Furthermore, state regulators have added their own emergency directives.

As COVID-19 is highly contagious and the confirmed cases have already surpassed 24 million with over 180k deaths in the US alone, many hospitals have been severely overburdened and most are taking strict safety measures. The lack of proper personal protection equipment (PPE) and the inevitable donning-and-doffing errors often make healthcare workers (HCWs) particularly vulnerable to be infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. One popular idea is telemedicine triage. Some current programs can use audio-visual telemedicine platforms to arrange virtual visits. While telemedicine brings various benefits to both the patients and providers, there are also concerns, especially on the quality of care for virtual visits. For example, if a patient presents suspected symptoms of COVID-19, a telehealth provider would most likely not be able to listen to the patient’s lungs to evaluate signs of pneumonia nor take the patient’s vital signs remotely. There are also implications related to antimicrobial prescribing. Therefore, we believe new and sophisticated biosensors must be developed and deployed to improve the quality of care for combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

For example, monitoring patients’ vital signs in a hospital or clinic is essential but requires close patient contact during setup, adjustment, and/or monitoring, and the very high PPE burn rate has also forced HCWs to reuse masks, therefore placing HCWs at higher risks to COVID-19. One can reduce the setup time required for vital signs monitoring and minimize patient–clinician contact by developing novel non-contact remote vital signs sensors to considerably reduce the chances of HCW–patient cross-infections.

Telehealth has quickly emerged as the preferred care setting during the COVID-19 pandemic and will drive patient behavior in the future. From a patient standpoint, many will now see telehealth as their first point of contact for urgent care. For healthcare providers, it is also wise to use telehealth and mobile health (mHealth) tools more often as a first point of contact to assess what patients need. Providers have been trying out telemedicine platforms and mHealth devices. After learning how to manage patients with COVID-19, providers can then turn their attention to manage patients with chronic care needs and those newly discharged to their homes, which would also benefit considerably from smart biosensors for intelligent monitoring.

No longer are telemedicine services viewed as “nice to have”; they are now a must-have care delivery option in the post-COVID-19 era. Therefore, we believe there is an urgent need for the development and deployment of various novel biosensors to enable a telemedicine revolution to combat COVID-19. In conclusion, we would appreciate your valuable and timely contribution to this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Donald Y.C. Lie
Dr. Tam Q. Nguyen
Prof. Dr. Chung-Chih Hung
Guest Editors

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