The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Emergency Department Visits at a Canadian Academic Tertiary Care Center

Introduction: Public health response to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has emphasized social distancing and stay-at-home policies. Reports of decreased emergency department (ED) visits in non-epicenters of the outbreak have raised concerns that patients with non-COVID-19 emergencies are delaying or avoiding seeking care. We evaluated the impact of the pandemic on ED visits at an academic tertiary care center. Methods: We conducted an observational health records review between January 1–April 22, 2020, comparing characteristics of all ED visits between pre- and post-pandemic declaration by the World Health Organization. Measures included triage acuity, presenting complaints, final diagnoses, disposition, and mortality. We further examined three time-sensitive final diagnoses: stroke;sepsis;and acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Results: In this analysis, we included 44,497 ED visits. Average daily ED visits declined from 458.1 to 289.0 patients/day (-36.9%). For the highest acuity triaged patients there was a drop of 1.1 patients/day (-24.9%). Daily ED visits related to respiratory complaints increased postpandemic (+14.1%) while ED visits for many other complaints decreased, with the greatest decline in musculoskeletal (-52.5%) and trauma (-53.6%). On average there was a drop of 1.0 patient/day diagnosed with stroke (-17.6%);a drop of 1.6 patients/day diagnosed with ACS (-49.9%);and no change in patients diagnosed with sepsis (pre = 2.8 patients/day;post = 2.9 patients/day). Conclusion: Significant decline in ED visits was observed immediately following formal declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, with potential for delayed/missed presentations of time-sensitive emergencies. Future research is needed to better examine long-term clinical outcomes of the decline in ED visits during pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health is the property of Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)