Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1348345
23 PATIENT & CAREGIVER EXPERIENCE 36% of US adults have skipped, delayed care during pandemic, report finds By Mackenzie Bean M ore than one-third of adults in the U.S. have skipped or delayed necessary medical care due to fear of COVID-19 exposure and limited care access during the pandemic, according to research funded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Researchers from the Urban Institute, a liberal-leaning policy research center in Washington, D.C., surveyed 4,007 adults under age 65 Sept. 11-28, 2020. Based on these survey results, researchers also published a separate analysis exploring how the pandemic has affected children's healthcare usage. Five findings from the reports: 1. About 36 percent of adults reported skipping or delaying care during the pan- demic, and nearly 29 percent of parents reported the same for their children. 2. One-third of adults who reported skipping care said one or more of their health issues worsened as a result. 3. Black adults were more likely to report delaying or skipping care (39.7 percent) compared to white or LatinX adults (34.3 percent and 35.5 percent, respectively). ey were also more likely to report skipping several types of care services. 4. About 40.7 percent of adults with at least one chronic health issue reported skipping or delaying care, while 56.3 percent of respondents with both a physician and mental health condition reported the same. 5. About 15.6 percent of parents report- ed delaying or skipping several types of care for their children. n Intermountain changes mammogram guidelines for women who get COVID-19 vaccine By Mackenzie Bean I ntermountain Healthcare has updated its mammography guidelines for women who plan to or have already received a COVID-19 vaccine, the health system said Feb. 9. The Salt Lake City-based health system now recommends women receive their mammogram screening before getting vaccinated, or delay the procedure until four weeks after their final dose. The change aligns with recommendations from the Society of Breast Imaging. The society updated its mammography recommendations after radiologists na- tionwide noticed a spike in mammograms showing swollen lymph nodes among women who were recently vaccinated. The policy change aims to avoid false positive results, according to Brett Parkin- son, MD, medical director of Intermountain's Breast Care Center. "We've seen this type of swelling on scans before, but never so pronounced because of one type of vaccine," Dr. Parkinson said in a news release emailed to Becker's. "We have procedures in place to confirm if swollen lymph nodes are actually cancer, but we don't want to have a patient go through the undue stress and anxiety of follow-up visits if they don't have to." n 1 in 4 physicians experience harassment on social media, study finds By Erica Carbajal N early one quarter of U.S. physicians face online attacks or harassment, according to the first known study to document physician experiences with online harassment. The research was published in JAMA Internal Medicine Jan. 4. Researchers from Evanston, Ill.-based Northwestern University and the University of Chicago collaborated on the study, issuing a survey that 464 U.S. physicians completed between Feb. 6 and March 20 of 2019. Findings indicated 23.3 per- cent of respondents (108) reported personal attacks on social media. Women were significantly more likely than men to report online sexual harass- ment — 16.4 percent (44), compared to 1.5 percent (3), respectively. Personal attacks were mainly related to online advocacy, such as backing vaccina- tions on social media. Work-related attacks were all related to patient care, while personal attacks not related to advocacy were based on race or religion. The study authors highlighted that survey data was collected before the pandemic. "If anything, our data is likely an underestimate of the true extent of attacks and harassment post-pandemic since so many doctors started to advocate for public health measures during the pandemic and have been met with an increasingly polarized populace," said study author Vineet Arora, MD, assis- tant dean for scholarship and discovery at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Since social media plays a role in collaboration among physicians, health sys- tems should support them and institute plans that address online harassment, according to the study. n