Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on accessibility of Taiwanese medical care

Jeng, Yung Ming; Chen, Feng-Hsi; Jen, Hsiao-Hsuan; Chen, Hsuan-Chih; Yen, Amy Ming‐Fang; Chen, Chih-Dao; Kuo, Hsiu-Wen; Wang, Sen-Te; Hsu, Chen-Yang

doi:10.37765/ajmc.2021.88698

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Given health professionals’ reassignment, and reduced operating room capacity, it is likely that chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgical excision of tumours were delayed [ 25 ]. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented some individuals from keeping regular medical appointments even in countries with a low infection risk; in Taiwan the visits of the elderly (≥ 80 years) were the most frequent before the COVID-19 pandemic but were reduced by 44% [ 26 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on medication use in the older Italian population

et al. 2022

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Objective This study aims to analyse the impact of the pandemic on the amount of use and new medication dispensation for chronic diseases in the Italian population aged 65 years and older (almost 14 million inhabitants). Methods The “Pharmaceutical Prescriptions database”, which gathers data on medications, reimbursed by the National Health Service and dispensed by community pharmacies, was employed. Data were analysed as amount of use (defined daily dose—DDD per 1000 inhabitants); variation in DDD between 2020 and 2019 was calculated for the 30 categories with major consumption in 2020. Trends in prevalence and incidence of dispensations between 2020 and 2019 were calculated for four categories: antidiabetics, antihypertensives, antidepressants and drugs for respiratory diseases. Results All medications showed a negative variation in DDD/1000 inhabitants between 2020 and 2019 except for anticoagulants (+ 5%). The percentage variation ranged from − 27.7% for antibiotics to − 6.4% for antipsychotics in 85 + year-old persons, but increased for most classes in the youngest (65–69 years). On the other hand, a decrease of the dispensation incidence of antidiabetics, antihypertensives, antidepressants and drugs for pulmonary disease was high, especially in the two extreme age groups, the youngest and the oldest one. Conclusions and relevance Great variation in medication use between 2020 and 2019 was observed probably reflecting the low rate of infectious diseases due to the widespread use of protective devices and self-isolation, reduced healthcare access because of the lockdowns and the fear of going to hospital, and the reduction of screening and diagnostics due to health-care system overload.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on medication use in the older Italian population

et al. 2022

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“…One retrospective cohort conducted in a community hospital in 4‐month periods (January to April 2020) of the emerging COVID‐19 pandemic compared with the similar period in 2019 reported that the overall outpatient visits per month declined by 39% (rate ratio [RR], 0.61; p < .0001), with International Classification of Diseases codes (ICD) diagnosis subgroups of skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders (–62%) and respiratory system disorders (–56%) having the most significant decline in patient visits. In contrast, the ICD classification groups of hypertension (–8%) and diabetes mellitus (–14%) showed the least reduction (Jeng et al., 2021). Another study collected data from January 1, 2018 to September 30, 2020, demonstrated that, after the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic, there was a drop of 25.5% in the number of total ED visits (Chen et al., 2021).…”

Section: The Covid‐19 Outbreak In Taiwan Changed Patients' Healthcare...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, they chose to stay at home or seek alternative therapies, such as taking over‐the‐counter medications or visiting local clinics rather than visiting EDs with non‐urgent conditions. They also postponed non‐urgent surgeries or procedures, including regular appointments for preventative measures such as health exams or cancer screening (Jeng et al., 2021). Meanwhile, the containment measures by Taiwan's Ministry of Health for emergency medical treatment included restrictions on the visits by accompanying and visiting family members, request for honesty in reporting travel history (T), occupational history (O), contact history (C), and cluster history (C) additionally played a role (Taiwan Centers for Disease Control, 2019a).…”

Section: The Covid‐19 Outbreak In Taiwan Changed Patients' Healthcare...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, research found a decreasing trend in ED visits for cerebrovascular and ischemic heart diseases, increased risk of mortality in non‐admission chest pain patients, longer waiting time for ICU admission, and higher in‐hospital mortality in patients with 72‐h ED re‐visit during the COVID pandemic (Chen, 2022; Jeng et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2021; Tsai et al., 2021). In this regard, the impact of delayed medical care on high‐risk patients during and especially after a prolonged pandemic is still unclear.…”

Section: The Covid‐19 Outbreak In Taiwan Changed Patients' Healthcare...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, they chose to stay at home or seek alternative therapies, such as taking over-thecounter medications or visiting local clinics rather than visiting EDs with non-urgent conditions. They also postponed non-urgent surgeries or procedures, including regular appointments for preventative measures such as health exams or cancer screening (Jeng et al, 2021).…”

Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Taiwan's National Health Insurance at the Emergency Department following the COVID‐19 outbreak

Kaplan

Lin

Lee

2023

Public Health Nursing

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Taiwan's National Health Insurance (NHI) is a widely acclaimed universal healthcare system. In the past few years, particularly following the COVID-19 outbreak, challenges related to maintaining the NHI system have surfaced. Since 2020, NHI has faced a series of challenges, including excessive patient visits to the hospital emergency department, a lack of an effective primary care and referral system, and a high turnover rate of healthcare workers. We review major problems related to Taiwan's NHI, emphasizing input from frontline healthcare workers. We provide recommendations for potential policies addressing the concerns around NHI, for example, strengthening the role of primary care services under the NHI administration, reducing the high turnover rate of healthcare workers, and increase the premium and copayments. We hope that this policy analysis may allow policymakers and scholars to understand both the merits and critical problems related to NHI from the clinical perspective.

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Factors Associated with the Delay in Seeing a Doctor: Evidence of Chinese Middle-Aged and Older Adults

Qin,

Ni,

Ding

2023

JMDH

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Background There have been few studies concerning delayed medical attention among middle-aged and older adults, and in-depth analyses of delay duration and symptoms have been lacking. Methods In this cross-sectional study exploiting a face-to-face questionnaire survey, we investigated delays in seeing a doctor among ≥ 45-year-old people in Zhejiang, China over the past year, and analyzed relevant influencing factors through logistics regression. Results A total of 1034 people aged ≥45 years were enrolled, whose overall occurrence of delay in seeing a doctor was 28.24% (23.00% for older adults aged ≥60 years). Factors like the presence of 2 chronic diseases, intense social loneliness, and more health care needs contributed to the occurrence of delay in seeing a doctor (OR (95% CI) = 2.102 (1.252–3.529); OR (95% CI) = 1.030 (1.002–1.059); OR (95% CI) = 1.049 (1.002–1.099). Contrastively, factors like convenient access to medical care and good self-reported health status inhibited such occurrence OR (95% CI) = 0.321 (0.199–0.519); OR (95% CI) = 0.369 (0.183–0.745). The foremost reason was wanting to wait and see if the problem would get better on its own (117, 40.07%). Respiratory system disease (14.90%), dental problems (13.82%), and cardiac disease (13.61%) constituted the top 3 types of diseases whose treatments were delayed. Additionally, for the majority of older adults, the delay duration was 1–2 weeks (99, 33.90%), and the economic burden was the cause of the longest delay in seeing a doctor among middle-aged and older adults. Conclusion To alleviate the problem of delay in seeing a doctor among middle-aged and older adults, their families and society should enhance care for them and reduce their sense of social loneliness. Emphasis should be placed by the government on helping middle-aged and older adults with financial difficulties so that their medical convenience can be improved.

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Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on accessibility of Taiwanese medical care

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on medication use in the older Italian population

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on medication use in the older Italian population

Taiwan's National Health Insurance at the Emergency Department following the COVID‐19 outbreak

Factors Associated with the Delay in Seeing a Doctor: Evidence of Chinese Middle-Aged and Older Adults

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