Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, countries all over the world suffered from different kinds of service disruption or reduction in the field of orthopedics with or without lockdowns. The consequences include no restriction, partial disruption, overburden of medical services and complete shutdown of clinical practices. This chapter systematically reviews the current published literature on the global impact of COVID-19 on the field of orthopedics through multiple aspects, including educational impact, service volume impact, workload impact, personal practice change, psychological impact, and impact on orthopedic research. The rates of all surgeries and elective surgeries decreased by 15.6%–49.4% and 43.5–100%, respectively. The overall impact was attributable to the staff redeployment in response to the pandemic. Therefore, it is important to maintain a flexible allocation of manpower and more sufficient and reservable staffing measures in case of emergency staff shortages. Orthopedic surgeons are suggested to prepare proper preventive strategies and set up special equipment and places for regular telemedicine for virtual consultations or virtual teaching. It can be expected that the integration of the different experiences of global countries from the impact of COVID-19 may help us to face possible similar impacts in the future.
Highlights
The World Health Organization declared the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as a worldwide pandemic on March 12, 2020
Orthopedic surgeons may not be in the front line to fight against COVID-19pandemic, all the fields of orthopedics are still inevitably impacted
All the fields of orthopedics were clearly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
The World Health Organization declared the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as a worldwide pandemic on March 12, 2020. A cumulative millions of cases have been confirmed, and thousands to millions of people have died of this disease, seriously impacting the global economy. Under this pandemic situation, the global orthopedics field was inevitably impacted and the impact was comprehensive. Psychosocial, Educational, and Economic Impacts of COVID-19 have caused many restrictions, such as separation of employees, reduction in the number of outpatient clinics, delayed or suspension of elective surgeries, and cancelation of non-emergency consultations or referrals to reduce the infection risk among patients and orthopedic staff. Because of the different infection situations in different countries, with different early responses, different infection control measures and different administrative management strategies, many of the results may not be suitable for a direct comparison. All publications presenting comparable data, including reduction percentage of all surgeries and reduction percentage of elective surgery, were compared
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