TRANSFORMATION OF MEDICAL CARE FOR PATIENTS WITH INFECTIOUS DISEASES BY INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALISTS OF CITY CLINICS IN THE POST-PANDEMIC PERIOD

Introduction. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted the work of prehospital care in providing care to patients with infectious diseases. At the same time, the work of physicians in infectious disease offices in the post-COVID period (relative epidemic well-being) remains poorly studied.

Objective. To compare the appointment structure and workload of infectious disease specialists’ infectious disease specialists in the preand post-COVID periods (2016, 2023–2025) using Grodno outpatient clinics as an example.

Methods. An analysis of reporting forms from eight Grodno outpatient clinics was conducted. Physician workload, visit structure, infectious morbidity, dispensary monitoring characteristics. Statistical analysis was performed using the Pearson χ 2 test. Differences were considered statistically significant at p < 0.05.

Results. The total number of patients admitted to the infectious disease specialists remained at the 2016 level (approximately 32,600 per year), but the structure has changed dramatically: the share of acute pathologies increased from 15.8 % (2016) to 51.5 % (2025), and the share of consultations decreased from 50.9 % to 17.6 % (p < 0.01). The «flow acuity» coefficient (the ratio of the sum of acute and consultative appointments to dispensary ones) increased from 2.00 to 2.23. Infectious morbidity (excluding COVID-19) for 12 months of 2025 was 298.4 per 100 000 population, exceeding the 2024 figure by 25.6 % (p < 0.05). A decrease in the number of patients with chronic viral hepatitis was recorded (from 3,691 in 2017 o 2,061 in 2025), while the number of patients with HIV infection increased (from 110 to 262, with antiretroviral therapy coverage reaching 100 %).

Conclusion. In the post-pandemic period, infectious disease specialists experienced a shift in the structure of patient admissions from “consultative and dispensary” to primary «acute infectious» cases. This is currently justified from a clinical and epidemiological perspective and should be maintained. The optimal solution is to organize the reception of patients with acute infectious pathology (“febrile”) at the infectious disease cabinets base in 2 shifts of work of city (district) polyclinics by an infectious disease specialist and a general practitioner (alternate).

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