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Introduction: The use of smartphones to provide specialist ophthalmology services is becoming a more commonly used method to support patients with eye pathologies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for telehealth services such as tele-ophthalmology, is increasing rapidly., Methods: In 2019, the agreement between diagnostic tests was investigated by comparing the diagnostic performance for eye posterior pole pathologies of the images obtained by a smartphone coupled to a medical device known as open retinoscope (OR), handled by a nurse and subsequently assessed by an ophthalmologist versus the images obtained by an ophthalmologist using a slit lamp associated to a 76 diopter indirect ophthalmic lens (Volk Super FieldVR ) (SL-IOL) at the outpatient department of a hospital. The OR used in this study worked with a 28 diopter indirect lens., Results: An examination of 151 dilated eyes (79 adult patients, mean age of 66.7 years, 59.5% women) was conducted. Sensitivity was 98.9%, specificity was 89.8%, the positive predictive value was 93.8% and the negative predictive value was 98.2%. The kappa index between both tests was 0.90 (95% CI: 0.83-0.97) in basic diagnosis, 0.81 (95% CI: 0.74-0.89) in syndromic diagnosis (13 categories) and 0.70 (95% CI: 0.62-0.77) in advanced diagnosis (23 categories)., Discussion: Images obtained by a nurse using a smartphone coupled to the OR and subsequently assessed by an ophthalmologist showed a high diagnostic performance for eye posterior pole pathologies, which could pave the way for remote ophthalmology systems for this patient group.

Background: The clinical spectrum of COVID-19 varies from no or mild symptoms to pneumonia with fatal complications. The aim of the study was to find predictors of mortality and admission in the intensive care unit (ICU) in patients hospitalized for COVID-19., Methods: Retrospective study of a cohort of patients admitted for COVID-19 between March 2020 and February 2021. Demographic, clinical, radiological and laboratory variables were described at admission. Independent predictors of mortality and ICU admission were identified by means of backward stepwise logistic regression and described in terms of odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI)., Results: A total of 883 patients were included, 51.8% men with a mean age of 68; 1.8% readmissions. 17.6% of patients died (n=154). The independent predictors of mortality were age (OR=1.071; 95%CI: 1.046-1.095), percentage of oxygen saturation (SatO2) (OR=0.938; 95%CI: 0.903-0.974), diastolic blood pressure (DBP, OR= 0.972; 95%CI: 0.955-0.989), creatinine (OR=1.516; 95%CI: 1.088-2.113), INR (OR=1.199; 95%CI: 1.012-1.419) and sodium (OR=1.082; 95%CI: 1.037-1.128). Eight percent of patients were admitted to ICU; the independent predictors were: male sex (OR=2.079; 95%CI: 1.099-3.935), age (OR=0.960; 95%CI: 0.942-0.979), SatO2 (OR=0.925; 95%CI: 0.889-0.962), creatinine (OR=1.551; 95%CI: 1.118-2.152) and C-reactive protein (CRP, OR=1.003; 95%CI: 1.000-1.007)., Conclusion: The identification of independent predictors of mortality (age, SatO2, DBP, creatinine, INR, sodium) and ICU admission (sex, age, SatO2, creatinine, and CRP) allowed for the stratification of patients to adapt clinical care protocols to these findings, thereby improving medical decisions.