Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on cardiac rhythm management services: Views from the United Kingdom

Effect of COVID-19 on cardiac electrophysiology practice: a systematic review of literature

“…Another effect of deferring elective cases could be an increase in the waiting list for these EP procedures. Another study conducted in the UK 31 in our review reported a 67.8% increase in the waiting list for cardiac rhythm management services as compared to prepandemic levels, which would require almost 3 years to clear this backlog alone. This effect might also be seen in other elective healthcare services that were postponed during the pandemic 41 , 42 .…”

“…Of these, 45 studies were excluded based on the inclusion criteria. A total of 23 studies qualified for the final qualitative analysis 4 , 10 – 31 . A total of 4 studies were from the United States of America, 14 from Europe, and 1 from Pakistan, Oman, Iran, Japan, and New Zealand.…”

“…An estimated 19 124 EP procedures were carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic in all studies compared to 24 916 EP procedures carried out before the pandemic. Nineteen studies reported pre-COVID-19 data on EP procedures being carried out in tertiary level care centers 4 , 12 – 18 , 20 , 22 – 31 . Only one study reported data on postCOVID EP procedure volumes 15 .…”

“…One study 19 reported worsened patient outcomes due to the postponement of EP procedures. One study showed the impact of postponement on cardiac rhythm management waiting lists during the pandemic 31 .…”

Use of Satellite-Sites for Percutaneous Cardiac Ablations (the Hub-and-Spoke Model): Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Covid-19 significantly impacted health care delivery worldwide and UK services were restructured. 5 Urgent inpatient cardiac ablations were still performed, but all elective ablations were canceled leading to national rises in waiting times. 2 However, the resumption of elective cardiac ablations at satellite Spoke-sites allowed electrophysiology activity to resume more rapidly.…”