Outpatient Screening of Health Status Among Postbariatric Patients during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Sao Paulo, Brazil

The shortage of essential medical care has become a major health concern as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to unfold. The population of Sao Paulo, Brazil, has been severely impacted due to the very-high prevalence of Covid-19 cases, and as the health system promptly adjusted to accommodate infected patients, the problem of access to essential care escalated. Out of concern that COVID-19 has created a situation where at-risk patients are confined with little or no access to face-to-face health care, we performed an out-of-hospital screening of health status and lifestyle habits remotely among patients who recently underwent bariatric surgery, a condition that requires systematic health care follow-up to ensure the safety and the benefits of the surgical procedure.