It's complicated. There are opportunities. In my own domain, doing certain follow-up visits by virtual care or by telephone can be quite effective and save patients from having to travel long distances. On the other hand, doing consultations and providing urgent and emergent care in orthopaedics and many other specialities requires hands-on care. I think we have to find the balance; it's not all or none.
Dr. Kassam could probably speak to this better than me. Because of the nature of family practice and the size of the offices, the size of the waiting rooms, the staff and the availability of PPE, they really had to resort to telephone care and virtual care more than any of them would want. As a consequence, I think that has contributed to building the backlog of patients needing referral. Certainly in our own orthopaedic practice, new referrals to my colleagues fell like a stone during the first few stages of the pandemic, and it's starting to come back now as care is returning to the office setting, so I think that's something we need to learn from.