Observational studyJournal of the American Geriatrics Society2021
Emergency department visits for emergent conditions among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Observational study in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 49 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impact of a multi-component hospital avoidance programme in residential aged care homes: a stepped-wedge cluster randomised trial.Age and ageing · 2025Trial
- Utilization of Occupational and Physical Therapy Home Health Visits Among People Living With Dementia With Varying Social Determinants of Health.Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · 2025Article
- The Importance of Treatment Modality in Veterans with Opioid Use Disorder: Implications for Virtual Care.Community mental health journal · 2025Article
- Changes in Veterans Health Administration Emergency Department Visits During Two Years of COVID-19.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2025Observational
- End-of-life emergency department use and healthcare expenditures among older adults: A nationally representative study.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Article
- The impacts of mask-wearing regulations on stroke morbidity and mortality: a population-based retrospective cohort study in China.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Article
- Impact of the Early COVID-19 Pandemic on Suicide Attempts and Suicide Deaths in South Korea, 2016-2020: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis.Psychiatry investigation · 2024Article
- Trends in falls among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada: A retrospective observational study.BMC geriatrics · 2024Observational
- The Clinical Emergency Data Registry: Structure, Use, and Limitations for Research.Annals of emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Implementation of community health care services to counter the SARS-CoV2 pandemic.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Article
- Epidemiology and clinical characteristics of adult patients presenting to a low resource, tertiary care emergency department in Pakistan: Challenges & Outcomes.Pakistan journal of medical sciences · 2024Article
- Article
- An Outcome Comparison Between Geriatric and Nongeriatric Emergency Departments.Annals of emergency medicine · 2023Observational
- Changes in Acute ED Visits by Race/Ethnicity During the Early COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of immigrant and minority health · 2023Article
- Evaluation of falls in older persons in the emergency department during the early Coronavirus-2019 pandemic and pre-pandemic periods.European geriatric medicine · 2023Article
- The impact of COVID-19 epidemic on emergency department visits of older patients in Taiwan.BMC geriatrics · 2023Article
- COVID-19 Pandemic and Healthcare Communication: A Patient-Centric Evaluation of Treatment and Diagnostic Procedures in Poland.Medical science monitor : international medical journal of experimental and clinical research · 2023Article
- Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on emergency department utilization of computed tomography scans of appendicitis and diverticulitis.Emergency radiology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND/
objectiveEmergency department (ED) visits have declined while excess mortality, not attributable to COVID-19, has grown. It is not known whether older adults are accessing emergency care differently from their younger counterparts. Our objective was to determine patterns of ED visit counts for emergent conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic for older adults.
designRetrospective, observational study.
settingObservational analysis of ED sites enrolled in a national clinical quality registry.
participantsOne hundred and sixty-four ED sites in 33 states from January 1, 2019 to November 15, 2020. MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES: We measured daily ED visit counts for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), stroke, sepsis, fall, and hip fracture, as well as deaths in the ED, by age categories. We estimated Poisson regression models comparing early and post-early pandemic periods (defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to the pre-pandemic period. We report incident rate ratios to summarize changes in visit incidence.
resultsFor AMI, stroke, and sepsis, the older (75-84) and oldest old (85+ years) had the greatest decline in visit counts initially and the smallest recovery in the post-early pandemic periods. For falls, visits declined early and partially recovered uniformly across age categories. In contrast, hip fractures exhibited less change in visit rates across time periods. Deaths in the ED increased during the early pandemic period, but then fell and were persistently lower than baseline, especially for the older (75-84) and oldest old (85+ years).
conclusionsThe decline in ED visits for emergent conditions among older adults has been more pronounced and persistent than for younger patients, with fewer deaths in the ED. This is concerning given the greater prevalence and risk of poor outcomes for emergent conditions in this age group that are amenable to time-sensitive ED diagnosis and treatment, and may in part explain excess mortality during the COVID-19 era among older adults.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.