Shifts in ophthalmic care utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic in the US.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Healthcare restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in ophthalmology, led to a differential underutilization of care. An analytic approach is needed to characterize pandemic health services usage across many conditions.

Methods

A common analytical framework identified pandemic care utilization patterns across 261 ophthalmic diagnoses. Using a United States eye care registry, predictions of utilization expected without the pandemic were established for each diagnosis via models trained on pre-pandemic data. Pandemic effects on utilization were estimated by calculating deviations between observed and expected patient volumes from January 2020 to December 2021, with two sub-periods of focus: the hiatus (March-May 2020) and post-hiatus (June 2020-Decemb

SUBMITTER: Li C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10721809 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature