ArticlePortuguese journal of public health2020
The Demand for Hospital Emergency Services: Trends during the First Month of COVID-19 Response.
Article in Portuguese journal of public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on utilisation of healthcare services: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2021Pooled it
- Strategies to convert hospital beds for COVID-19 patients to minimize emergency department overcrowding.Health services management research · 2024Observational
- Measuring efficiency of public hospitals under the impact of Covid-19: the case of Türkiye.Cost effectiveness and resource allocation : C/E · 2023Article
- Initial steps for the Portuguese Atlas of geographical variation in healthcare.Research in health services & regions · 2023Article
- Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the frequency of emergency department visits in Portugal: An interrupted time series analysis until July 2021.Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open · 2023Article
- The Pandemic-Related Factors Associated with Emergency Department Visits in Portugal throughout Two Years of the Pandemic: A Retrospective Population-Based Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Demand for emergency services during the COVID-19 pandemic and disease burden: a case study in Portugal.Frontiers in public health · 2023Observational
- Article
- 'I Didn't Know Where to Go': A Mixed-Methods Approach to Explore Migrants' Perspectives of Access and Use of Health Services during the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Article
- Emergency Department Changes to Combat COVID-19 in Oman.Disaster medicine and public health preparedness · 2022Article
- Review
- Emergency medical admissions and COVID-19: impact on 30-day mortality and hospital length of stay.Irish journal of medical science · 2022Article
- Real-World Impact of Transferring the Dispensing of Hospital-Only Medicines to Community Pharmacies During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Value in health : the journal of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research · 2022Article
- The importance of elderly people knowing basic first-aid measures.BMC emergency medicine · 2022Article
- Article
- Safety assessment for temporary hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic: A simulation approach.Safety science · 2022Article
- Frequency and patient attributes associated with emergency department visits after discharge: Retrospective cohort study.PloS one · 2022Article
- Factors Associated with the Patient's Decision to Avoid Healthcare during the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Treatment Efficiency for Traumatic Brain Injury in the Emergency Department: A Multicenter Study in Taiwan.Journal of clinical medicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Since December 2019, more than 925,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported worldwide, 8,251 cases in Portugal by the end of March. Previous studies related to the SARS pandemic showed a decrease up to 80% in the emergency care episodes. Hence, the objective of this study is to analyze the use of emergency services during the first pandemic month, compared to historical records. Methods: Data from emergency episodes in mainland Portugal, from January 2014 to March 2020, were downloaded from the National Health Service (NHS) Transparency Portal and the NHS monitoring website. The evolution of emergency services from March to September 2020 was forecasted based on historical data from January 2014 to February 2020. Information for March 2020 was forecasted globally, by the Regional Health Administration (RHA) and Manchester Triage System (MTS). Results: Compared with forecasted values, there was a 48% reduction in the number of emergency episodes in March 2020. In the analysis by the RHA, Alentejo had the smallest decrease in the number of episodes; interestingly, Alentejo is also the area with fewer COVID-19 cases in mainland Portugal. In the analysis by the MTS, the episodes classified as yellow showed the highest reduction (50%). For episodes classified as urgent, there is a difference of about 144,000 episodes during March 2020. Discussion: The results of this preliminary study are aligned with the evidence produced for previous pandemics. Data about the use of emergency services, demographic and clinical characteristics of the episodes would be relevant to analyze this reduction. Conclusion: There was a significant drop in the number of emergency service use in March 2020, and although the causes of this reduction are not determined, the association between the beginning of the pandemic and the reduction of demand is evident. Understanding this phenomenon is crucial to plan interventions to avoid unnecessary morbidities or deaths, caused by a delayed visit to the emergency department.
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