Spillover Effects of COVID-19 on Essential Chronic Care and Ways to Foster Health System Resilience to Support Vulnerable Non-COVID Patients: A Multistakeholder Study.
Sungwon Yoon, Hendra Goh, Angelique Chan and 15 others
PMID 34848198WHAT IT FOUND
Stakeholders reported that staff redeployment, closed diagnostics and suspended therapy disrupted chronic care for non-COVID patients in Singapore.
Older people were described as more isolated and unwell. Digital visits and kiosks were described as helpful, but cybersecurity and digital literacy gaps remained.
Key findings
01Stakeholders described COVID-19 control measures as causing spillover effects on chronic care: workforce adjustment, diminished patient support, and adverse patient outcomes.
02Patients needing physiotherapy were reported as more affected because allied health professionals could not move between institutions.
03Cybersecurity concerns and digital literacy gaps were reported as barriers to wider use of digital chronic care.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The participants were staff, managers and policy officials, not patients, so the paper reports stakeholder perceptions rather than patient experiences. No objective clinical outcomes or service use data were measured. The study was in one Singapore health system and used purposive sampling, so it may not apply elsewhere. The authors state that workforce deployment limited recruitment of a balanced group and that direct bedside care providers were largely absent. The authors did not explore the views of vulnerable non-COVID patients.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat these stakeholder reports as proof that telehealth or lockdown changes improved patient outcomes. Patients and objective outcomes were not measured, and the paper describes perceptions.