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Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pediatric emergency department: a single institution experience

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in drastic decreases in volume for most pediatric emergency departments (ED). Injuries have persisted and there is concern that injuries may have increased during the pandemic. This study evaluates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ED patient trends at...

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Autores principales: Masler, Isabella V., Shah, Nipam, Duerring, Shea A., Monroe, Kathy R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9768778/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36544193
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40621-022-00401-w
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author Masler, Isabella V.
Shah, Nipam
Duerring, Shea A.
Monroe, Kathy R.
author_facet Masler, Isabella V.
Shah, Nipam
Duerring, Shea A.
Monroe, Kathy R.
author_sort Masler, Isabella V.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in drastic decreases in volume for most pediatric emergency departments (ED). Injuries have persisted and there is concern that injuries may have increased during the pandemic. This study evaluates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ED patient trends at a freestanding children’s hospital. RESULTS: Despite an average annual increase of 1100 patients per year between 2017 and 2019, this ED saw a decrease of over 25,000 patients in 2020. The number of trauma alerts increased from 341 in 2017 to 571 in 2020 and those numbers remained stable (568–571) in 2020 compared to 2019. The percent of total volume accounted for by trauma alerts increased from 0.65 to 1.2% between 2019 and 2020 (following the trend of 0.48% in 2017 to 0.56% in 2018). Historically, motor vehicle crashes account for the majority of the trauma alerts, though the number of trauma alerts from firearm-related injuries increased from 36 per year in 2018 to 44 in 2019 to 66 (12% of total trauma alerts) in 2020. CONCLUSIONS: While total volumes of patients being seen decreased, the number of trauma alerts remained stable resulting in an increased percentage of trauma alert patients. This indicates that severe injuries requiring trauma alert activation did not diminish during the pandemic. These trends have implications for prevention as well as implications for ED staffing. Changing trends in types of severe injuries are noted.
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spelling pubmed-97687782022-12-21 Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pediatric emergency department: a single institution experience Masler, Isabella V. Shah, Nipam Duerring, Shea A. Monroe, Kathy R. Inj Epidemiol Research BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in drastic decreases in volume for most pediatric emergency departments (ED). Injuries have persisted and there is concern that injuries may have increased during the pandemic. This study evaluates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ED patient trends at a freestanding children’s hospital. RESULTS: Despite an average annual increase of 1100 patients per year between 2017 and 2019, this ED saw a decrease of over 25,000 patients in 2020. The number of trauma alerts increased from 341 in 2017 to 571 in 2020 and those numbers remained stable (568–571) in 2020 compared to 2019. The percent of total volume accounted for by trauma alerts increased from 0.65 to 1.2% between 2019 and 2020 (following the trend of 0.48% in 2017 to 0.56% in 2018). Historically, motor vehicle crashes account for the majority of the trauma alerts, though the number of trauma alerts from firearm-related injuries increased from 36 per year in 2018 to 44 in 2019 to 66 (12% of total trauma alerts) in 2020. CONCLUSIONS: While total volumes of patients being seen decreased, the number of trauma alerts remained stable resulting in an increased percentage of trauma alert patients. This indicates that severe injuries requiring trauma alert activation did not diminish during the pandemic. These trends have implications for prevention as well as implications for ED staffing. Changing trends in types of severe injuries are noted. BioMed Central 2022-12-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9768778/ /pubmed/36544193 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40621-022-00401-w Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Masler, Isabella V.
Shah, Nipam
Duerring, Shea A.
Monroe, Kathy R.
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pediatric emergency department: a single institution experience
title Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pediatric emergency department: a single institution experience
title_full Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pediatric emergency department: a single institution experience
title_fullStr Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pediatric emergency department: a single institution experience
title_full_unstemmed Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pediatric emergency department: a single institution experience
title_short Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pediatric emergency department: a single institution experience
title_sort effects of the covid-19 pandemic on the pediatric emergency department: a single institution experience
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9768778/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36544193
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40621-022-00401-w
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