Otolaryngology: Open Access

Abstracto

Patient Volume Trends in Paediatric Otolaryngology during COVID-19

Amresh Hassan

The COVID- 19 epidemic has posed great challenges to healthcare systems around the world; the consequences of severe acute respiratory pattern coronavirus 2(SARS- CoV- 2) are still present in both outpatient and inpatient settings. The complaint was first honored in Wuhan, China in late December of 2019. Since also, spread of the contagion fleetly evolved into an epidemic which oppressively altered the way otolaryngologists have rehearsed. To circumscribe spread of the contagion, the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, among others, set forth recommendations to delay all optional andnon-urgent surgeries in medial- to late- March of 2020 utmost state governments followed suit with analogous superintendent orders. With these restrictions in place, a dramatic drop in surgical and inpatient provider practice volume would be anticipated. Indeed, results of an early (April 2020) transnational check commanded by the International Pediatric Otolaryngology Group set up that 67 of institutions were only seeing critical inpatient clinic cases while 82 were only performing critical operative cases. Still, in the environment of these society guidelines, the terms “critical” or “time-sensitive” were frequently defined by individual croakersor institutional judgement. And while there have been sweats to report oninter-institutional practice data, information is lacking reviewing trends across regions or practice typesintrainstitutionally. This study aims to quantify practice patterns among pediatric