ArticleActa bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis2022
Patients who leave the Emergency Department without being seen. Has COVID-19 affected this phenomenon?
Article in Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.
- How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Been Associated with Emergency Department Leave Without Being Seen Rates? A Comparison Between Hospitals in Ancona (Italy) and Gran Canaria (Spain).Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Observational
- Acute care pathway assessed through performance indicators during the COVID-19 pandemic in OECD countries (2020-2021): a scoping review.BMC emergency medicine · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimPatients who present to an Emergency Department (ED) and leave without being seen by a physician represent a safety concern because they may become severely ill and experience adverse events as a result of lacking or delayed ED treatment. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the increasing number of patients accessing care through the ED in Italy and throughout the world has had implications for health policies.
methodsA retrospective cohort study that included all ED visits from 1st January 2013 to 31st December 2018 in the Perugia University Hospital has been carried out.
resultsDuring the 5 years investigated 26,344 out of 300,372 (8.77%) patients who attended the ED left the triage area before being seen with an average of 439 patients per month. The same phenomenon has been analysed from February to October 2020. During these 9 months there were a total of 1,824 out of 30,990 (5.88%) patients who left the ED without being seen with an average of 202 per month. The latter value is one third lower than the one related to the period investigated prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
conclusionsSuch investigation could help to differentiate actual essential demand from non-essential demand within the ED, which could inform quality-improvement policies. Several strategies could be implemented to lower the proportion of patients who leave the department without being seen. Reorganising the activities in the ED with different paths should be implemented with the aim of reducing waiting times and in turn patients' satisfaction.
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