by Frank Otto
The first few waves of COVID-19 slowed life across the United States, affecting everything from attending school to eating out for dinner and going on vacation. Segments of health care were also affected: Services that were not considered immediately crucial to fighting the virus were slowed or stopped during the pandemic’s first wave.
But once Penn Medicine invited patients back to resume normal health care—including preventive care, like screenings for disease—there was some lag in numbers.
“As we opened up to routine outpatient care, screening rates for situations when patients didn’t have symptoms were not returning back to normal,” said Mitchell Schnall, MD, PhD, FACR, a professor of Radiology, now the senior vice president for Data and Technology Solutions at Penn Medicine, and then the head of a team focused on the “resurgence” efforts to ease patients back into outpatient care. “Although a short delay in health screening is likely not going to cause long-term health problems, we were concerned whether screening rates would stay lower and lead to a long-term impact.”
Read the full story in Penn Medicine News.
Mitchell Schnall is a member of the Penn Bioengineering Graduate Group.