Telephonic Postoperative Follow-up During a Pandemic: Cohort Study

Curbelo-Peña, Yuhamy; Vivas, Pamela; Gonzales, Jessica; Uyanik, Ozlem; Saavedra-Pérez, David; Lopez, Sandra; Ibañez, Luis; Serrano, Alejandro; Errando, Xavier

Introduction: According to the available scientific evidence It is unknown whether replacing clinic follow-up visits with telephone follow-up for low-risk elective and non-elective surgeries is safe. Nonetheless;using telemedicine has become one of the most needed and used methods during this pandemic to avoid COVID-19 disease spreading among surgical teams and patients. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed. We compared the frequency of needing of any health assistance, adverse event and readmissions after been discharged and during the first 30 postoperative days, between two groups of patients, the first one with exclusive telephone follow-up vs the traditional face-to-face visit. Results: We registered the data from 324 patients who underwent elective and non-elective low-risk surgeries between May 1st and December 1st 2020. The overall health assistance rate during the first 30 days after been discharged home was 11,54%. The telephone follow-up group we registered only 18 adverse events compared with 29 for the traditional visit group this was statistical significant. We found 13 consults for telephonic follow-up group and 14 for traditional visit this was statistical significant as well. We also found difference between the two groups in matter of readmissions in favor of telephonic follow-up. All these differences were statistically significant. Conclusion: No standardized postoperative management algorithm exists for patients undergoing surgery during a pandemic. We propose the telephonic follow-up based on our findings, as a safe and effective approach. Future studies are needed to validate the current proposal.