ArticleBMC public health2023
Changes in emergency department utilisation in Germany before and during different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, using data from a national surveillance system up to June 2021.
Article in BMC public health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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15 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Investigating changes in care patterns and lessons learned during COVID-19 pandemic - an exploratory, convergent mixed method study at two university emergency departments in Germany.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Article
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- Establishing and validating syndromic surveillance of gastrointestinal infections using routine emergency department data, Germany, 2019-2023.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Does Calm Always Follow the Storm? A Comprehensive Temporal Analysis of Emergency Department Visits in Northern Italy Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Establishing Syndromic Surveillance of Acute Coronary Syndrome, Myocardial Infarction, and Stroke: Registry Study Based on Routine Data From German Emergency Departments.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2025Article
- Implementation report on pioneering federated data access for the German National Emergency Department Data Registry.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- The invasive GAS puzzle in Italy: genomic insights from a hospital cohort in a fragmented surveillance landscape.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Article
- Data-driven segmentation of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients: an observational study on health care utilisation prior to an emergency department visit in Germany.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
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- Changing of nasal fracture patterns in maxillofacial trauma consultation-impact of the covid-19 pandemic.Oral and maxillofacial surgery · 2024Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Inpatient Antibiotic and Antifungal Drug Prescribing Volumes in Germany.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Effects of COVID-19-targeted non-pharmaceutical interventions on pediatric hospital admissions in North Italian hospitals, 2017 to 2022: a quasi-experimental study interrupted time-series analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Effects of COVID-19-targeted non-pharmaceutical interventions on pediatric emergency department use: a quasi-experimental study interrupted time-series analysis in North Italian hospitals, 2017 to 2022.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Pre-Hospital Emergency Medical Services Utilization Amid COVID-19 in 2020: Descriptive Study Based on Routinely Collected Dispatch Data in Bavaria, Germany.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Article
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12 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health and social measures, decreasing patient numbers have been described in various healthcare settings in Germany, including emergency care. This could be explained by changes in disease burden, e.g. due to contact restrictions, but could also be a result of changes in utilisation behaviour of the population. To better understand those dynamics, we analysed routine data from emergency departments to quantify changes in consultation numbers, age distribution, disease acuity and day and hour of the day during different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.
methodsWe used interrupted time series analyses to estimate relative changes for consultation numbers of 20 emergency departments spread throughout Germany. For the pandemic period (16-03-2020 - 13-06-2021) four different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic were defined as interruption points, the pre-pandemic period (06-03-2017 - 09-03-2020) was used as the reference.
resultsThe most pronounced decreases were visible in the first and second wave of the pandemic, with changes of - 30.0% (95%CI: - 32.2%; - 27.7%) and - 25.7% (95%CI: - 27.4%; - 23.9%) for overall consultations, respectively. The decrease was even stronger for the age group of 0-19 years, with - 39.4% in the first and - 35.0% in the second wave. Regarding acuity levels, consultations assessed as urgent, standard, and non-urgent showed the largest decrease, while the most severe cases showed the smallest decrease.
conclusionsThe number of emergency department consultations decreased rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, without extensive variation in the distribution of patient characteristics. Smallest changes were observed for the most severe consultations and older age groups, which is especially reassuring regarding concerns of possible long-term complications due to patients avoiding urgent emergency care during the pandemic.
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