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How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Attendance at a Tertiary Orthopedic Center Emergency Department: A Comparison between the First and Second Waves

Italy was the first European country to face the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. The country quickly implemented strategies to contain contagions and re-organize medical resources. We evaluated the COVID-19 effects on the activity of a tertiary-level orthopedic emergency department (ED...

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Autores principales: Carlicchi, Eleonora, Di Sabato, Maria Eugenia, Cincotta, Antonino, Accetta, Riccardo, Aliprandi, Alberto, Albano, Domenico, Sconfienza, Luca Maria, Messina, Carmelo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9689342/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36428919
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12112855
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author Carlicchi, Eleonora
Di Sabato, Maria Eugenia
Cincotta, Antonino
Accetta, Riccardo
Aliprandi, Alberto
Albano, Domenico
Sconfienza, Luca Maria
Messina, Carmelo
author_facet Carlicchi, Eleonora
Di Sabato, Maria Eugenia
Cincotta, Antonino
Accetta, Riccardo
Aliprandi, Alberto
Albano, Domenico
Sconfienza, Luca Maria
Messina, Carmelo
author_sort Carlicchi, Eleonora
collection PubMed
description Italy was the first European country to face the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. The country quickly implemented strategies to contain contagions and re-organize medical resources. We evaluated the COVID-19 effects on the activity of a tertiary-level orthopedic emergency department (ED) during the first and second pandemic waves. We retrospectively collected and compared clinical radiological data of ED admissions during four periods: period A, first pandemic wave; period B, second pandemic wave; period C, three months before the COVID-19 outbreak; period D, same timeframe of the first wave but in 2019. During period A, we found a reduction in ED admissions (−68.2% and −59.9% compared with periods D and C) and a decrease in white codes (non-urgent) (−7.5%) compared with pre-pandemic periods, with a slight increase for all other codes: +6.3% green (urgent, not critical), +0.8% yellow (moderately critical) and +0.3% red (highly urgent, risk of death). We observed an increased rate of fracture diagnosis in period A: +14.9% and +13.3% compared with periods D and C. Our study shows that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a drastic change in the ED patient flow and clinical radiological activity, with a marked reduction in admissions and an increased rate of more severe triage codes and diagnosed fractures.
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spelling pubmed-96893422022-11-25 How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Attendance at a Tertiary Orthopedic Center Emergency Department: A Comparison between the First and Second Waves Carlicchi, Eleonora Di Sabato, Maria Eugenia Cincotta, Antonino Accetta, Riccardo Aliprandi, Alberto Albano, Domenico Sconfienza, Luca Maria Messina, Carmelo Diagnostics (Basel) Article Italy was the first European country to face the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. The country quickly implemented strategies to contain contagions and re-organize medical resources. We evaluated the COVID-19 effects on the activity of a tertiary-level orthopedic emergency department (ED) during the first and second pandemic waves. We retrospectively collected and compared clinical radiological data of ED admissions during four periods: period A, first pandemic wave; period B, second pandemic wave; period C, three months before the COVID-19 outbreak; period D, same timeframe of the first wave but in 2019. During period A, we found a reduction in ED admissions (−68.2% and −59.9% compared with periods D and C) and a decrease in white codes (non-urgent) (−7.5%) compared with pre-pandemic periods, with a slight increase for all other codes: +6.3% green (urgent, not critical), +0.8% yellow (moderately critical) and +0.3% red (highly urgent, risk of death). We observed an increased rate of fracture diagnosis in period A: +14.9% and +13.3% compared with periods D and C. Our study shows that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a drastic change in the ED patient flow and clinical radiological activity, with a marked reduction in admissions and an increased rate of more severe triage codes and diagnosed fractures. MDPI 2022-11-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9689342/ /pubmed/36428919 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12112855 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
Carlicchi, Eleonora
Di Sabato, Maria Eugenia
Cincotta, Antonino
Accetta, Riccardo
Aliprandi, Alberto
Albano, Domenico
Sconfienza, Luca Maria
Messina, Carmelo
How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Attendance at a Tertiary Orthopedic Center Emergency Department: A Comparison between the First and Second Waves
title How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Attendance at a Tertiary Orthopedic Center Emergency Department: A Comparison between the First and Second Waves
title_full How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Attendance at a Tertiary Orthopedic Center Emergency Department: A Comparison between the First and Second Waves
title_fullStr How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Attendance at a Tertiary Orthopedic Center Emergency Department: A Comparison between the First and Second Waves
title_full_unstemmed How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Attendance at a Tertiary Orthopedic Center Emergency Department: A Comparison between the First and Second Waves
title_short How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Attendance at a Tertiary Orthopedic Center Emergency Department: A Comparison between the First and Second Waves
title_sort how the covid-19 pandemic affected attendance at a tertiary orthopedic center emergency department: a comparison between the first and second waves
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9689342/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36428919
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12112855
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