Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on High-Risk Infant Follow-Up (HRIF) Programs: A Survey of Academic Programs.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the functioning and services of academic high-risk infant follow-up (HRIF) clinics throughout North America. Prospective 25-question questionnaire survey through REDCAP links that was sent over 10 weeks, to 105 US and 10 Canadian programs. Finally, 59 of 105 US programs and 5 of 10 Canadian responses were analyzed using SAS version 9.4. In the US, 67% of programs reported closures between 1-5 months, whereas in Canada 80% of programs closed for 1-3 months. In the US 86% of programs provided telemedicine visits and only 42.5% provided multidisciplinary HRIF telemedicine visits. We enumerated innovative approaches specifically for the conduct of Telemedicine visits, the need for the standardization of various tests and services in a telemedicine setting, and to emphasize the urgent need for more government funding to improve follow-up and developmental services to this fragile group of newborns.

Citation

Sanjeet Panda, Rashmi Somu, Nathalie Maitre, Garrett Levin, Ajay Pratap Singh. Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on High-Risk Infant Follow-Up (HRIF) Programs: A Survey of Academic Programs. Children (Basel, Switzerland). 2021 Oct 06;8(10)

PMID: 34682154

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