How would COVID-19 protocols have impacted on continuity of care of hypertension patients

ObjectiveTo investigate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the continuity of care (COC) in hypertension patients. Additionally, the factor of whether participants were treated by telemedicine or not was also considered.MethodsNational Health Insurance and Medical Aid claims This study used data from the Republic of Korea between 2019 and 2020. The multiple regression analysis was performed to identify the differences in visits and the Most Frequent Provider Continuity (MFPC) of hypertensive patients before and after the COVID-19. To confirm the effect of telemedicine, additional analysis was performed with data that deleted cases that received telemedicine.FindingsA total of 5,791,812 hypertensive patients are included in this study. When the confounding variables were adjusted, the MFPC decreased by 0.0031 points after the COVID-19. It also showed the same results for MFPC when telemedicine cases were excluded. The number of outpatient clinic visit days decreased by 0.2930 days after the COVID-19. Without telemedicine cases, the number of outpatient clinic visit days decreased by 0.3330 days after the COVID-19.ConclusionThe COVID-19 protocols did not affect hypertension patients' COC but impacted their outpatient frequency. Additionally, when telemedicine cases are considered, COC was the same, but the patient’s outpatient frequency had decreased, but not as much as when telemedicine cases were considered.

Scabies in Children: A Retrospective Study

Background: Scabies is a skin disease in humans and is caused by Sarcoptes scabiei mite. It burrows into the skin and is transmitted through close physical contact. The common symptom is itchiness, mainly occur at night, along with a history of itch from family members or friends with whom the patients might have close physical contact before. Scabies is still a concerning health problem for the majority of poor and developing countries. Purpose: To evaluate the profile of newly-admitted children scabies patients. Methods: This study retrospectively evaluated the medical records of subjects with scabies in the Children Dermatology Division, Dermatology and Venereology Department of Dr. Soetomo General Academic Hospital, Surabaya, between January 2012 and December 2014. Results: There were 545 patients with scabies (33.6% from Children Dermatology Division visit and 3.2% from overall outpatient clinic visit), mainly consisted of children aged 5-14 years old (69%), and mostly males (62.6%). The most common symptom was itchiness (70.28%), most patient sought treatment after the complaint have been persisted for more than 30 days (51.7%), and 66.4% patients have family members with similar complaint. Most of the lesions were found on the hands (60.37%), mostly as papules (73.2%). Almost all of them did not undergo a skin scraping examination (99.1%). The most common therapy combination was permethrin 5% and oral antihistamine (49.7%). Conclusions: This profile on scabies patients was expected to aid in improving scabies treatment in the future.

Unexpected Height Loss in an Adolescent With Cystic Fibrosis

This case report describes an adolescent with pancreatic insufficient cystic fibrosis, malnutrition, and cystic fibrosis–related diabetes found to have a loss in height at a routine outpatient clinic visit. He was subsequently admitted to the hospital for treatment of a pulmonary exacerbation and was found to have multiple, nontraumatic vertebral compression fractures. This report emphasizes the importance of routine review of growth charts and aggressive treatment of vitamin deficiencies and malnutrition in people with cystic fibrosis.