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Did COVID-19 Change Emergency Department Admissions?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2022

Edeline Kaze ,
Jef Vanderoost  and
Marc Sabbe
Edeline Kaze
Affiliation:
Faculty of Medicine, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc, Brussels, Belgium
Jef Vanderoost
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, UZ Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Marc Sabbe*
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, UZ Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
*
Corresponding author: Marc Sabbe, Email: marc.sabbe@uzleuven.be.
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Abstract

Objective:

This study aimed to describe the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on emergency department (ED) admissions for urgent diagnoses.

Methods:

From January 1, 2019, until December 31, 2020, patients older than 18 years who attended the ED at University Hospital of Leuven (UZ Leuven, Belgium) were included. Urgent diagnoses selected in the First Hour Quintet were collected. The periods of the pandemic waves in 2020 were analyzed and compared with the same time period in 2019.

Results:

During the first wave of the pandemic, 16 075 patients attended the ED compared with 16 893 patients during the comparison period in 2019. The proportion of patients having one of the diagnoses of the First Hour Quintet was similar between the periods (4.4% vs 4.5%). During the second wave, 14 739 patients attended the ED compared with 18 704 patients during the same period in 2019; 5.6% of patients had a diagnosis of the First Hour Quintet compared with 4.3% of patients in the comparison period.

Conclusion:

This study showed a decrease in the number of patients attending the ED during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further studies are needed to determine for which conditions patients visited the ED less.

Keywords

admissionsCOVID-19emergency departmentpandemicSARS-CoV-2
Type
Brief Report
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 16 , Issue 6 , December 2022 , pp. 2425 - 2427
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc.

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