期刊
HEALTH AFFAIRS
卷 40, 期 9, 页码 1457-1464出版社
PROJECT HOPE
DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2021.00561
关键词
-
资金
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [3R01 HS025408-04S1]
The study shows a significant decrease in emergency department visits during the COVID-19 pandemic, with patients presenting with more serious illnesses, possibly due to delays in seeking care. Early increase in hospitalizations and relative risk for thirty-day mortality were also observed, indicating potential consequences of avoidance or delay in seeking emergency care.
Concerns about avoidance or delays in seeking emergency care during the COVID-19 pandemic are widespread, but national data on emergency department (ED) visits and subsequent rates of hospitalization and outcomes are lacking. Using data on all traditional Medicare beneficiaries in the US from October 1, 2018, to September 30, 2020, we examined trends in ED visits and rates of hospitalization and thirty-day mortality conditional on an ED visit for non-COVID-19 conditions during several stages of the pandemic and for areas that were considered COVID-19 hot spots versus those that were not. We found reductions in ED visits that were largest by the first week of April 2020 (52 percent relative decrease), with volume recovering somewhat by mid-June (25 percent relative decrease). These reductions were of similar magnitude in counties that were and were not designated as COVID-19 hot spots. There was an early increase in hospitalizations and in the relative risk for thirty-day mortality, starting with the first surge of the pandemic, peaking at just over a 2-percentage-point increase. These results suggest that patients were presenting with more serious illness, perhaps related to delays in seeking care.
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