The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on revisits to emergency department.
Myeong Namgung, Dong Hoon Lee, Sung Jin Bae and 8 others
PMID 36717326WHAT IT FOUND
Emergency department revisit rates rose during COVID-19 across most age groups and time intervals.
Older patients still revisited more often, and at revisit they were more likely to be admitted to intensive care or die.
Key findings
01The primary outcome, revisit rates within 3, 9, and 30 days, was higher in the COVID-19 period than in the pre-COVID-19 period for most age groups and intervals.
02Revisit rates increased with age in both periods; during COVID-19, adults over 80 revisited within 30 days at 14.1%, compared with 6.9% for adults aged 18 to 34 years.
03Revisit patients were older, more often triaged as level 1, 2, or 3, and had longer emergency department stays; in the COVID-19 period, mean stay was 259 minutes at revisit versus 163 minutes at index visit.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study used only a national emergency department database and did not review medical records, so it could not tell whether a revisit was for the same problem as the first visit. Because it was retrospective, the researchers could not confirm whether revisits were scheduled or unscheduled. Only revisits to the same hospital were counted, so the reported revisit rates may underestimate the true rate. The study included only tertiary university hospitals in metropolitan South Korea, so it may not apply to primary or secondary hospitals. Frequent emergency department users and visits for non-medical or unknown reasons were excluded, so the results do not describe those patients.
Declared interests
No funding was reported, and the supplied text does not include a conflict-of-interest declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the pandemic caused more emergency department revisits. The study compared two periods and could not link the reason for the revisit to the first visit, confirm whether visits were scheduled, or count visits to other hospitals.