ArticleAnnals of family medicine
The Disproportionate Impact of Primary Care Disruption and Telehealth Utilization During COVID-19.
Article in Annals of family medicine. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Developmental outcomes in infants treated with therapeutic hypothermia before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Pediatric healthcare service utilization after the end of COVID-19 state of emergency in Northern Italy: a 6-year quasi-experimental study using interrupted time-series analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Telehealth in Family Medicine Clerkships After Return of In-Person Care: A CERA Study.PRiMER (Leawood, Kan.) · 2024Article
- Compliance With Routine Health Checkup Visits Among California-Based Minority Men: A Survey Study.American journal of men's healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeThe COVID-19 pandemic not only exacerbated existing disparities in health care in general but likely worsened disparities in access to primary care. Our objective was to quantify the nationwide decrease in primary care visits and increase in telehealth utilization during the pandemic and explore whether certain groups of patients were disproportionately affected.
methodsWe used a geographically diverse primary care electronic health record data set to examine the following 3 outcomes: (1) change in total visit volume, (2) change in in-person visit volume, and (3) the telehealth conversion ratio defined as the number of pandemic telehealth visits divided by the total number of prepandemic visits. We assessed whether these outcomes were associated with patient characteristics including age, gender, race, ethnicity, comorbidities, rurality, and area-level social deprivation.
resultsOur primary sample included 1,652,871 patients from 408 practices. During the pandemic we observed decreases of 7% and 17% in total and in-person visit volume and a 10% telehealth conversion ratio. The greatest decreases in visit volume were observed among pediatric patients (-24%), Asian patients (-11%), and those with more comorbidities (-9%). Telehealth usage was greatest among Hispanic or Latino patients (17%) and those living in urban areas (12%).
conclusionsDecreases in primary care visit volume were partially offset by increasing telehealth use for all patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the magnitude of these changes varied significantly across all patient characteristics. These variations have implications not only for the long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also for planners seeking to ready the primary care delivery system for any future systematic disruptions.
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Registered trials
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