Background and Objective:
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on health systems around the world. In particular, the suspension of scheduled surgical activities, guaranteeing only urgent surgeries, has inevitably lengthened the waiting time for treatment of patients with a diagnosis other than Covid-19, resulting in inefficient management of the operating rooms. This study aims to describe the advantages of telehealth services for managing patient operations and care. METHODS This study, focusing on a dataset including 166 major surgery interventions from the data warehouse of the "Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza Research Hospital" (Italy) from January 2021 to November 2022, examined, in particular, the Pre-hospital Pathway. The research, analyzing the leading Key Performance Indicators and comparing them between the two years of investigation (2021 in the absence and 2022 in the presence of the telehealth service), highlighted potential changes in organizational and operational dynamics. RESULTS The main results indicate a better efficiency of the Time Management of the operating room. The data show a significant reduction "of the index of re-planning of surgical operations" from 16.27% in 2021 to 7.5% in 2022. In addition, the number of surgeries performed in the operating room has been optimized from 71.4% in 2021 to 90% in 2022. CONCLUSION Introducing the telehealth service in the Pre-hospital Pathway is a valuable tool to spread the culture of Change Management within the health organization. Enhanced operations management and improved patient experience are the tangible results of this study.