Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York, USA.
Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Telemed J E Health. 2022 Oct;28(10):1547-1551. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2021.0512. Epub 2022 Mar 3.
To assess the COVID-19 exposure risk to consulting ophthalmologists and the pandemic effect on consultations at one of the most impacted hospital systems in New York. In a retrospective, cross-sectional study, ophthalmology consult notes and COVID-19 test results were collected from the electronic medical record from February to May in 2019 and 2020. Of 2,215 total notes analyzed, consults decreased from 1,374 to 841 between years ( = 0.0002). In 2020, 22.5% of all consults were COVID tested and 2.4% were positive within 2 weeks of in-person evaluation. In 2020, 1.8% of consults were electronic. Ventilated patients increased between years (7.5% to 10.8%; = 0.04). Although consultations decreased during the Spring 2020 peak, the majority (98.2%) remained as in-person evaluations. While few patients tested COVID positive, this likely reflects the limited availability of testing early in the pandemic. Consulting ophthalmologists remained at high risk of COVID-19 exposure during the pandemic peak.
评估 COVID-19 暴露风险咨询眼科医生和大流行对在纽约受影响最严重的医院系统之一的咨询的影响。 在一项回顾性、横断面研究中，从 2019 年 2 月至 5 月和 2020 年的电子病历中收集了眼科咨询记录和 COVID-19 检测结果。 在分析的 2215 份总记录中，咨询量从 1374 份减少到 841 份（ = 0.0002）。2020 年，所有咨询中有 22.5%接受了 COVID 检测，2.4%在亲自评估后 2 周内呈阳性。2020 年，1.8%的咨询是电子的。住院患者人数在这两年间有所增加（从 7.5%到 10.8%； = 0.04）。尽管在 2020 年春季高峰期咨询量有所下降，但大多数（98.2%）仍为亲自评估。尽管很少有患者 COVID 检测呈阳性，但这可能反映出早期大流行期间检测的可用性有限。在大流行高峰期，咨询眼科医生仍面临 COVID-19 暴露的高风险。
