The COVID-19 global pandemic has caused massive disruption to routine scheduled care in the United Kingdom and worldwide Khitish Mohanty. In our university health board, cessation of elective surgery occurred on 15th March along with all non-essential clinic appointments. This led to a cohort of patients having undergone arthroplasty in the six weeks prior to 15th March being unable to attend for their routine first post-operative visit with this ‘check up’ undertaken by telephone call instead. Khitish Mohanty Whilst virtual follow-up methods are well established in stable arthroplasty patients, to our knowledge it has not been used for first post-operative visits in the past. With potential cost and convenience advantages to both the patient and the health service, we aimed to assess patients’ satisfaction with this method of follow-up to guide future practice in the post pandemic era Khitish Mohanty.
Khitish Mohanty Materials and methods; Local approvals were sought and obtained for the study. All patients who underwent hip and knee primary or revision arthroplasty between 3rd February 2020 and 15th March 2020 had received a phone call from their operating surgeon or a nominated deputy (fellow or registrar) in the six weeks following surgery. In this call they were given the opportunity to raise any questions and were assessed in a non-structured way similar to a routine clinic visit Khitish Mohanty. Patients were asked to self report on the condition or any problems with their wound through a dedicated telephone number. Where there was any significant concern raised by the patient a face-to-face appointment was made to see the operating surgeon in the urgent clinic. Patients were then sent a structured questionnaire via email which can be viewed in Appendix 1 Khitish Mohanty. A second email was sent to all patients who were yet to complete the survey after one week, followed by a phone call to improve the response rate. Responses were collated to analyse patient’s perceptions of the service Khitish Mohanty.
57 eligible patients were identified in this period and sent the questionnaire, of which 50 (88%) returned a completed form. The mean age of respondents was 67 with a range of 46 to 84. Khitish Mohanty There were 19 (40%) males and 28 (60%) females with 62% having undergone knee replacements and 38% having undergone hip replacements. Patient’s aims and expectations from the appointment mainly centered around three themes:
Reassurance about progress, Visual check of the wound/joint, Advice on maintaining recovery/therapy. 63% of patients felt that their aims and expectations were met from the ‘virtual’ appointment Khitish Mohanty. Six of 44 (14%) responses stated they had a concern regarding their wound at some time following the surgery and 26% sought advice regarding a concern following their operation. On a five point Likert scale 74% found this method quite or very convenient, 68% felt it was quite or very effective, and 62% were quite satisfied or very satisfied. These results are shown graphically in Figures 1-3 Khitish Mohanty.
