Learning from the Decrease in US Emergency Department Visits in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Anyone who has been near an emergency department (ED) in the US since the middle of March 2020 knows that the census decreased precipitously as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic intensified. Pundits in the medical and mass media have speculated on where ED patients, especially those with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions, acute strokes, and other serious conditions, had gone. In this issue, Jeffery et al carefully document that in the period preceding the influx of patients with COVID-19, the census of 24 EDs in a 5-state sample decreased between 42% and 64%; with the exception of Mount Sinai Health in New York, the number of admissions from the ED decreased as well.
Source: JAMA Internal Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Source Type: research