Learn Best Practices for Diagnosing and Managing Common Infectious Syndromes Over Telemedicine

For information on how the materials below can be integrated into your practice's efforts to improve antibiotic use, select the Implementation Guide for Improving Antibiotic Use in Telemedicine (PDF, 380 KB).

Understanding the role of antibiotic therapy in the management of common infectious syndromes seen over telemedicine is essential to optimize antibiotic use and patient care. The materials below address multiple types of common infectious complaints in the telemedicine setting. These resources are intended for clinicians, pharmacists, practice staff, and stewardship teams.

Listed below, the Guide to Conducting a Virtual Physical Exam over Telemedicine offers suggestions for how to conduct a virtual physical exam. For most of the syndromes there is an accompanying presentation, facilitator guide, one-page summary document for clinicians, template to respond to patient portal messages, and/or handout for patients. The content for most presentations is relevant for both pediatric and adult patients; each presentation describes the target patient population(s).

• The presentations and facilitator guides are case-based and focus on common scenarios in the telemedicine care setting.
• The documents for clinicians provide recommendations for diagnosis, management, and treatment. They can be used as a template for local antibiotic use guidelines or can be used as virtual posters or distributed to clinicians.
• The sample message templates can be used by clinicians to help respond to patient messages (such as those received through the patient portal).
• The patient handouts can be provided when the patient has a telemedicine visit.