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Dynamics in the Neurotrauma Catchment Area of a German University Hospital during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objective: At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic enforced a rapid reallocation of healthcare resources. Our neurosurgical department is located in the German county of Marburg–Biedenkopf, about 80 km from the nearest major city. We were able to maintain our previously established open-door...

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Autores principales: Rupa, Rosita, Vladimirov, Tim, Pojskic, Mirza, Nimsky, Christopher, Voellger, Benjamin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9332166/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35893198
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10081376
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author Rupa, Rosita
Vladimirov, Tim
Pojskic, Mirza
Nimsky, Christopher
Voellger, Benjamin
author_facet Rupa, Rosita
Vladimirov, Tim
Pojskic, Mirza
Nimsky, Christopher
Voellger, Benjamin
author_sort Rupa, Rosita
collection PubMed
description Objective: At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic enforced a rapid reallocation of healthcare resources. Our neurosurgical department is located in the German county of Marburg–Biedenkopf, about 80 km from the nearest major city. We were able to maintain our previously established open-door policy after the emergence of COVID-19. Here, we report on dynamics in the catchment area for neurotrauma patients at our department during the pandemic. Methods: 763 consecutive neurotrauma cases admitted to our department between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2021 were analyzed retrospectively. Patients’ age, gender, origin, diagnoses, and outcomes were recorded. The number of patients hospitalized with a COVID-19 infection in Germany (PHCG) were retrieved from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). We defined calendar weeks with >1000 PHCG as high COVID-19 caseload weeks (HCLW). Chi-square and Fisher’s exact served as statistical tests. Results: In 2020 and 2021, we observed a significantly increased number of neurotrauma patients who, with primary residence outside of our district, were admitted to our hospital compared to 2018 and 2019 (p < 0.001), while there were no significant differences in in-house mortality. During HCLW, a significantly increased number of neurotrauma patients with primary residence in the densely populated southwestern margin (SWM) of the contiguous part of our catchment area were referred to us compared to the time prior to the pandemic and between HCLW (p = 0.003). In neurotrauma patients admitted from the SWM during HCLW, there was no tendency towards higher in-house mortality. Conclusion: An open-door policy may moderate the risk of involuntarily triaging neurotrauma patients during a pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-93321662022-07-29 Dynamics in the Neurotrauma Catchment Area of a German University Hospital during the COVID-19 Pandemic Rupa, Rosita Vladimirov, Tim Pojskic, Mirza Nimsky, Christopher Voellger, Benjamin Healthcare (Basel) Article Objective: At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic enforced a rapid reallocation of healthcare resources. Our neurosurgical department is located in the German county of Marburg–Biedenkopf, about 80 km from the nearest major city. We were able to maintain our previously established open-door policy after the emergence of COVID-19. Here, we report on dynamics in the catchment area for neurotrauma patients at our department during the pandemic. Methods: 763 consecutive neurotrauma cases admitted to our department between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2021 were analyzed retrospectively. Patients’ age, gender, origin, diagnoses, and outcomes were recorded. The number of patients hospitalized with a COVID-19 infection in Germany (PHCG) were retrieved from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). We defined calendar weeks with >1000 PHCG as high COVID-19 caseload weeks (HCLW). Chi-square and Fisher’s exact served as statistical tests. Results: In 2020 and 2021, we observed a significantly increased number of neurotrauma patients who, with primary residence outside of our district, were admitted to our hospital compared to 2018 and 2019 (p < 0.001), while there were no significant differences in in-house mortality. During HCLW, a significantly increased number of neurotrauma patients with primary residence in the densely populated southwestern margin (SWM) of the contiguous part of our catchment area were referred to us compared to the time prior to the pandemic and between HCLW (p = 0.003). In neurotrauma patients admitted from the SWM during HCLW, there was no tendency towards higher in-house mortality. Conclusion: An open-door policy may moderate the risk of involuntarily triaging neurotrauma patients during a pandemic. MDPI 2022-07-24 /pmc/articles/PMC9332166/ /pubmed/35893198 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10081376 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Rupa, Rosita
Vladimirov, Tim
Pojskic, Mirza
Nimsky, Christopher
Voellger, Benjamin
Dynamics in the Neurotrauma Catchment Area of a German University Hospital during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Dynamics in the Neurotrauma Catchment Area of a German University Hospital during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Dynamics in the Neurotrauma Catchment Area of a German University Hospital during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Dynamics in the Neurotrauma Catchment Area of a German University Hospital during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Dynamics in the Neurotrauma Catchment Area of a German University Hospital during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Dynamics in the Neurotrauma Catchment Area of a German University Hospital during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort dynamics in the neurotrauma catchment area of a german university hospital during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9332166/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35893198
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10081376
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