Numbers of emergency room patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background: Since end of March, the health care system in Germany has been placed into a state of emergency in order to gain resources for the spreading coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The overall goal of this study is to evaluate the number of emergency room patients at the time of the pandemic in order to draw conclusions about the influence of the COVID 19 pandemic on the number of patients in an emergency department. Materials and methods: With this descriptive epidemiologic study we collected and analyzed anonymized patient-related data of 19,357 cases presenting to the emergency department of the Klinikum rechts der Isar (Munich) from 01 February 2019 to 30 April 2019 and from 01 February 2020 to 30 April 2020. Results: Despite an increase in the number of patients from 2019 to 2020, there was a significant drop in the number of emergencies from February to March 2020 and proceeding in April to a level below that of 2019. This was particularly observed in the field of trauma surgery, with a 40% decrease in the number of patients. With regard to the individual complaint patterns in March 2020, it was found that an increased incidence of malaise (+47%) and breathing problems (+36%) was recorded, whereas back pain (−41%), wounds (−29%), thoracic (−24%) and abdominal pain (−23%) were significantly less common than in the previous year. In terms of the severity of the complaints, the decline was mainly due to complaints with a low degree of urgency. Conclusion: In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic we observed a significant decline in the number of patients in one of the largest emergency rooms in Munich. This has to be avoided with existing hospital capacities, in order to prevent potential damage to health caused by postponed or missing emergency presentations.