Impact of a community-based asynchronous review clinic on appointment attendance delays across an eye hospital network in London, UK: an interrupted time series analysis.

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology
• Health Services Research
• Public Health

Background:

• Pre-existing attendance delays for chronic eye disease monitoring were increasing.
• The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated appointment delays in eye care services.
• A London teaching eye hospital network faced challenges with patient follow-up scheduling.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based asynchronous review ophthalmic clinic.
• To assess the impact of this new model on appointment attendance delays.
• To determine if the clinic could alleviate backlogs for stable chronic eye diseases.

Main Methods:

• Interrupted time-series analysis of electronic health records.
• Involved 69,257 attendances from 39,357 patients between June 2018 and April 2023.
• Compared appointment delays before and after the opening of the asynchronous review clinic.

Main Results:

• Attendance delays increased pre-COVID-19 and worsened significantly post-lockdown.
• Opening the asynchronous review clinic led to an average decrease of 8.1 days per week in attendance delays.
• No significant differences in delays were observed based on age, gender, or deprivation level.

Conclusions:

• The asynchronous review clinic effectively reduced attendance delays for stable chronic eye diseases.
• This model successfully addressed existing backlogs within the eye hospital network.
• The positive impact on reducing delays was sustained even after the initial backlog was cleared.