The objectives of this study are to evaluate the impact of the CoVID-19 pandemic on the development of relevant emerging digital healthcare trends and to explore which digital healthcare trend does the health industry need most to support HCPs.

A web survey using 39 questions facilitating Five-Point Likert scales was performed from 1.8.2020 – 31.10.2020. Of 260 participants invited, 90 participants answered the questionnaire. The participants were located in the Hospital/HCP sector in 11.9%, in other healthcare sectors in 22.2%, in the pharmaceutical sector in 11.1%, in the medical device and equipment industry in 43.3%. The Five-Point Likert scales were in all cases fashioned as from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

As the top 3 most impacted digital health care trends strongly impacted by CoVID-19, respondents named:

- remote management of patients by telemedicine, mean answer 4.44

- shared data governance under patient control, mean answer 3.80

- new virtual interaction between HCP´s and medical industry, mean answer 3.76

Respondents were asked which level of readiness of the healthcare system currently possess to cope with the current trend impacted by CoVID-19.

- Digital and efficient healthcare logistics, mean answer 1.54

- Integrated health care, mean answer 1.73

- Use of big data and artificial intelligence, mean answer 2.03

Asked if collaborative research in the form of digital data platforms for research data sharing and increasing collaboration with multi-centric consortia would have a positive impact on the healthcare sector, the agreement was high with a value of mean 4.10 on the scale.

We can conclude that the impact of COVID-19 appears to be a high agreement of necessary advances in digitalization in the health care sector and in the collaboration of HCPs with the health care industry. Health care professional are unsure, in how far the national health care sector is capable of transformation in healthcare logistics and integrated health care.

Objective: To compare the surgical outcome of patients with right thoracic adolescent idiopathic scoliosis undergoing: 1). Single-stage anterior spinal release and posterior instrumented fusion with costoplasty, 2). Staged anterior spinal release and posterior instrumented fusion with costoplasty.

Study Design-Material: A retrospective study was performed including 20 consecutive patients for each surgical group.

Summary of Background Data: Scoliosis surgery in our institution has evolved over the past decade with respect to the interval between the anterior and posterior procedure. It was typical in the 1980’s/early 1990’s for the patients who required combined anterior-posterior spinal fusion to have 2 weeks between stages. This interval has now been reduced to one week by all our scoliosis surgeons. The authors recently endeavor to perform single-stage anterior-posterior procedures with costoplasty for all right thoracic curves in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.

Methods: The medical records and radiographs of the 40 patients were reviewed.

Results: The patients in both groups have been assessed for: 1). Correction of spinal deformity achieved with the operation, 2). Incidence of perioperative complications, 3). In-patient stay, 4). Postoperative course. The results were comparative between the 2 groups. Considerable curve correction was obtained with the combined anteroposterior spinal surgery and maintained at follow-up in both groups. No difference in the incidence of complications was recorded between the same-day and the staged groups. Less hospitalization time and time spent in the intensive care unit were required for the patients who underwent same-stage sequentially performed anterior-posterior spinal procedures.

Conclusions: This study showed that single-stage anterior-posterior surgery for right thoracic adolescent idiopathic scoliotic curvatures is a safe and efficacious procedure with no documented adverse effects for the patients. We believe that when a combined anteroposterior spinal approach is necessitated, the one-stage surgery could be considered the procedure of choice for the management of this type of scoliotic deformity.