The use of out-of-hours primary care during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In the Netherlands, General Practitioners (GP) are usually the first point of contact with a health professional for most health problems. Out-of-hours (OOH) primary care is provided by regional OOH services. Changes in consultation rates at OOH services may be regarded as a warning system for failures elsewhere in the healthcare system. Therefore in this study, we investigated how the COVID-19 pandemic changed the use of primary care OOH services during the first year of the pandemic.

Methods

Routine electronic health records data were used from 60% of OOH services in the Netherlands, collected by the Nivel Primary Care Database. We compared consultation rates per week (2020) for COVID-19-like symptoms and other health problems (e.g. small traumas, urinary tract

SUBMITTER: Ramerman L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9122805 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature