Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on telehealth and in-person visits: implications from an Emergency Department in Argentina

GRANDE RATTI, MARÍA FLORENCIA; FRID, ANDRÉS SANTIAGO; RODRIGUEZ, PAZ; POLLAN, JAVIER; ROVEGNO, LUCIANA; ESTEBAN, JORGE; LUNA, DANIEL R; MARTINEZ, BERNARDO; PEDRETTI, ANA; PLAZZOTTA, FERNANDO

Congreso; MEDINFO 2021; 2021

Since Argentina?s government declared a nationalemergency to combat the COVID-19 pandemic with alockdown status, it has produced consequences on thehealthcare system. We aimed to quantify the effect onthe Emergency Department (ED) visits at HospitalItaliano de Buenos Aires. Our electronic health datashowed that ED in-person visits declined 46% during theCOVID-19 pandemic, from an overall of 176,370 visitsduring 2019 to 95,421 visits during 2020.Simultaneously, there was a telehealth visits boom whenmandatory quarantine began (March 20, 2020): from amedian of 12 daily in February 2020 to a median of 338daily in April 2020; reaching a maximum daily peak of1,132 on March 26 2020. For a while, teleconsultationsreplaced ED visits. Then, when face-to-face visits beganto increase, teleconsultations began to decrease slowly,as the reverse phenomenon.