Impact of Appointment Deferment During the COVID-19 Pandemic on Patient Outcomes in a Primary Care Teaching Clinic

COVID-19 significantly disrupted health care services. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of appointment deferment during pandemic on patient outcomes. This was a retrospective cohort study where we traced the clinical parameters for patients where their appointment being scheduled to 6 months later. A total of 577 patients were included, mean age was 67.0 years (±11.8). Patients (7.8%, n = 45) made unscheduled visits, hospitalizations (3.1%, n = 18) while (0.5%, n = 3) deceased. Low-density lipoprotein and estimated glomerular filtration rate showed slightly improved post deferment but might not be clinically significant. Further sub-analyses found that patients with hypertension and heart diseases had nearly twice the odd of having poorer outcome (adjusted odds ratio: 1.991, 95% CI [1.023, 3.876], P = .043). Understanding these patterns would help identify patient groups at higher risk of poor outcomes and inform future strategies for triaging and managing care during public health emergencies.