Real-world vitreoretinal practice patterns during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic: a nationwide, aggregated health record analysis.
Curr Opin Ophthalmol
; 31(5): 427-434, 2020 Sep.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-692825
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE OF REVIEW The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an unprecedented challenge to the healthcare community. To reduce disease transmission, national regulatory agencies temporarily recommended curtailment of all nonurgent office visits and elective surgeries in March 2020, including vitreoretinal outpatient care in the USA. The effect of these guidelines on utilization of vitreoretinal care has not been explored to date. RECENT FINDINGS:
Retinal outpatient visits, new patient visits, intravitreal antivascular endothelial growth factor injections and in-office multimodal retinal imaging has seen a significant decline in utilization in the early phase of the pandemic. Intravitreal injections were performed at a comparatively higher rate than office visits. Utilization appeared to steadily increase in April 2020. Telemedicine visits, enabled by new national legislation for all areas of medicine, have been adopted to a modest degree by the retina community.SUMMARY:
In-office retinal care declined in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and national regulatory guidelines limiting nonurgent care. These trends in practice patterns and care utilization may be of interest to vitreoretinal providers and all ophthalmologists at large.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
Retinal Diseases
/
Vitreous Body
/
Practice Patterns, Physicians'
/
Patient Acceptance of Health Care
/
Coronavirus Infections
/
Pandemics
/
Betacoronavirus
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
North America
Language:
English
Journal:
Curr Opin Ophthalmol
Journal subject:
Ophthalmology
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
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