Telemedicine and its Impact on the Preoperative Period A Systematic Review of the Literature

The application of telemedicine has aroused a lot of interest in the field of chronic disease care, which is associated with clinical medicine. The aim of this research is to systematically evaluate the published evidence on telemedicine in the preoperative period. A systematic search was conducted over the last five years, excluding secondary research. Selection criteria were applied, obtaining 68 articles that met these criteria and quality criteria. The results show that the largest production is carried out in the United States and the United Kingdom, with collaboration between institutions and countries. The main use of telemedicine was in teleconsultation and telecounseling activities. In addition, the application of telemedicine in the preoperative period was made to a greater extent for general procedures without distinction of surgical specialty, oncological surgery and traumatology. An increased production observed can be related to the need for physical distancing due to the pandemic. Future research could include the co -occurrence of search terms, the impact of smartphones, NER terms, and the impact of polarity and objectivity on readers' choice of articles to read, share, and cite.