Medical Emergencies During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Overview

Journal Dtsch Arztebl Int

Specialties General Medicine
Public Health

Date 2020 Sep 1

PMID 32865489

Citations 73

Authors

Anna Slagman

Wilhelm Behringer

Felix Greiner

Matthias Klein

Dirk Weismann

Bernadett Erdmann

Mareen Pigorsch

Martin Mockel

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: In this study, we investigate the number of emergency room consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 in Germany compared to figures from the previous year.

Methods: Case numbers from calendar weeks 1 through 22 of the two consecutive years 2019 and 2020 were obtained from 29 university hospitals and 7 non-university hospitals in Germany. Information was also obtained on the patients' age, sex, and urgency, along with the type of case (outpatient/inpatient), admitting ward, and a small number of tracer diagnoses (I21, myocardial infarction; J44, COPD; and I61, I63, I64, G45, stroke /TIA), as well as on the number of COVID-19 cases and of tests performed for SARS-CoV-2, as a measure of the number of cases in which COVID-19 was suspected or at least included in the differential diagnoses.

Results: A total of 1 022 007 emergency room consultations were analyzed, of which 546 940 took place in 2019 and 475 067 in 2020. The number of consultations with a positive test for the COVID-19 pathogen was 3122. The total number of emergency room consultations in the observation period was 13% lower in 2020 than in 2019, with a maximum drop by 38% coinciding with the highest number of COVID-19 cases (calendar week 14; 572 cases). After the initiation of interpersonal contact restrictions in 2020, there was a marked drop in COVID-19 case numbers, by a mean of -240 cases per week per emergency room (95% confidence interval [-284; -128]). There was a rise in case numbers thereafter, by a mean of 17 patients per week [14; 19], and the number of cases of myocardial infarction returned fully to the level seen in 2019.

Conclusion: In Germany, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant drop in medical emergencies of all kinds presenting to the nation's emergency departments. A recovery effect began to be seen as early as calendar week 15, but the levels seen in 2019 were not yet reached overall by calendar week 22; only the prevalence of myocardial infarction had renormalized by then. The reasons for this require further investigation.

Citing Articles

Establishing Syndromic Surveillance of Acute Coronary Syndrome, Myocardial Infarction, and Stroke: Registry Study Based on Routine Data From German Emergency Departments.

Schranz M, Rupprecht M, Aigner A, Benning L, Schlump C, Charfeddine N JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2025; 11:e66218.

PMID: 39999026 PMC: 11878330. DOI: 10.2196/66218.

Implementation report on pioneering federated data access for the German National Emergency Department Data Registry.

Bienzeisler J, Kombeiz A, Ehrentreich S, Otto R, Schirrmeister W, Pegoraro M NPJ Digit Med. 2025; 8(1):94.

PMID: 39934366 PMC: 11814142. DOI: 10.1038/s41746-025-01481-w.

[Structured triage in the emergency department via intelligent assistant service OPTINOFA : Results of a multicenter, cluster-randomized and controlled interventional study in Germany].

Blaschke S, Dormann H, Somasundaram R, Dodt C, Graeff I, Busch H Med Klin Intensivmed Notfmed. 2024; .

PMID: 39680133 DOI: 10.1007/s00063-024-01229-6.

The impact of SARS-CoV-2 on emergency health care demand: inverse relationship between COVID-like illnesses and ED accesses in Genoa, Italy.

Ferrari A, Iudica G, Porretto M, Minet C, Ogliastro M, Simonetta D J Prev Med Hyg. 2024; 65(2):E154-E165.

PMID: 39430986 PMC: 11487745. DOI: 10.15167/2421-4248/jpmh2024.65.2.3279.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Emergencies in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery: An Analysis of Patients Presenting to Emergency Rooms in South-West Germany: A Bi-Center Study.

Wolpert S, Knoblich N, Holderried M, Becker S, Schade-Mann T Diseases. 2024; 12(8).

PMID: 39195193 PMC: 11354163. DOI: 10.3390/diseases12080194.

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