ArticleJournal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open2025
Trends in Observation Care and the Growth of Dedicated Emergency Department Observation Units: An Analysis of the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, 2007-2022.
Article in Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Condition-Specific Protocols Used in the Emergency Department Observation Unit: A Scoping Review.Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objectives: We examined changes in observation care from 2007 to 2022 and compared emergency departments (EDs) with ED observation units (EDOUs) to EDs with other observation care settings. Methods: We analyzed 2007-2022 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey data. We examined the proportion of ED visits resulting in hospitalizations (both inpatient and observation admits) and observation stays. We also examined the proportion of EDs reporting the presence of EDOUs and observation units outside the ED (hospital observation units or HOUs). Lastly, we compared patient populations across observation care settings. Results: From 2007 to 2022, the overall hospitalization rates among sampled ED visits were 14.5% (95% CI, 13.6-15.7) in 2007-2008 and 13.8% (95% CI, 12.9-15.8) in 2021-2022. Observation rates were 2.0% (95% CI, 1.6-2.4) to 2.4% (95% CI, 1.8-3.2) over the same periods (annual trend Conclusion: From 2007 to 2022, there was a modest increase in observation care utilization but a substantial increase in the presence of EDOUs across US EDs. EDOUs also have a lower rate of subsequent inpatient admission. Future research should include observation stays when examining hospital care utilization and seeking to distinguish EDOU from other forms of observation care.
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Registered trials
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