Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the organization of a home mechanical ventilation outpatient clinic.

The COVID-19 global pandemic severely disrupted usual hospital care of patients, especially those on home mechanical ventilation (HMV), due to restrictions and risk of aerosolization of infected particles. Our goal was to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 in the organization of a HMV clinic of a tertiary hospital. We conducted a retrospective analysis of consultations made in our HMV clinic from January 2020 to December 2021 and plotted the data with the number of COVID-19 cases reported in our country. The evolution of consultations and COVID-19 cases is represented in figure 1. With the description of the first cases in March 2020 we witnessed a shift from the traditional in-person consultation model, with the introduction of teleconsultations in our daily practice. In the first COVID-19 peak in 2020 we observed a predominance of teleconsultations that lasted until July, where there was a shift back to in-person consultations. In 2021 the number of teleconsultations was inferior to the previous year, but a trend towards an increase in these consultations was observed with each rise in COVID-19 cases. HMV teleconsultations had a significant boost in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and whenever the epidemiological situation worsened. As soon as the epidemiological scenario improved and with the introduction of vaccines, there was a return to in-person consultations.