Velcro splints more common
A potential upside to shifts seen during the pandemic, Dr. Shah said, is the finding that distal radius torus fractures were more likely to be treated with a Velcro splint than in previous years (44.2% vs. 25.9%; P = .010).
“This is hitting on something important – that sometimes it’s crisis that forces us as physicians to evolve,” he said. “This is something I think is here to stay.
“Although research had already been there suggesting a close equivalent between splints and casting, culturally, a lot of surgeons hadn’t made that shift when historically the gold standard had been casting,” Dr. Shah added. “But with the pandemic, the shift to minimize contact with the health care system to keep families safe in their COVID bubble helped [usage of] splints take off.
“I suspect – and we’ll only know when we’re on the other side of this – when physicians see good results in splints in their own patients, they’re going to adopt those strategies more permanently,” he said.
Benjamin Shore, MD, MPH, of Boston Children’s Hospital, agreed with Dr. Shah’s prediction that fracture care will be more streamlined after the pandemic. Dr. Shore, who wasn’t involved in the study, said not only are more orthopedic providers treating patients with Velcro splints and bivalve casts, but they are also monitoring patients via telehealth.
“All of these are great examples of innovation, and one of the unique parts of the pandemic is it created a lot of rapid change across healthcare because it caused us to scrutinize the ways we practice and make a change,” Dr. Shore said in an interview.
“It wasn’t a very fancy study, but it’s very important in terms of demonstrating a change in practice,” Dr. Shore said. “The research here basically validated what many of us are seeing and hopefully will help us in future pandemics – which hopefully won’t happen – to tell families what to be proactive about.”
Dr. Shah and Dr. Shore agreed that, because fewer fractures are occurring in kids during the pandemic, there is an opportunity to redeploy orthopedic providers to other clinical areas on the basis of volume and need.
Dr. Shah and Dr. Shore have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.