With the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in many patients using telemedicine to attend regular doctor visits, study investigators compared show rates for children with asthma across 4 months during the pandemic with the same period in 2019. “It would be normal to expect parents to be hesitant to bring kids into an asthma checkup during a pandemic,” Kenny Kwong, MD, study author, said in a press release. “We run the LAC+USC Breathmobile program (an urban school-based mobile asthma program) in Los Angeles and have regular asthma patients we work with. The pandemic in 2020 resulted in closure of most Los Angeles schools, and face-to-face visits were converted to telemedicine visits. We found that not only did kids show up for appointments, but their show rates were also significantly higher than during the same period in 2019.” During the telemedicine period, more than 90% of patients reported well-controlled asthma, comparable with pre-COVID rates. Breathmobile staff also reported a 32% to 62% increase in the time spent with each patient while on telemedicine visits when compared with in-person visits.
