Activity, triage levels and impact of the pandemic on hospital emergency departments: A multicentre cross‐sectional study
Abstract
Abstract Aim Describe the activity of hospital emergency departments (EDs) and the sociodemographic profile of patients in the eight public hospitals in Spain, according to the different triage levels, and to analyse the impact of the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic on patient flow. Design An observational, descriptive, cross‐sectional and retrospective study was carried out. Methods
Three high‐tech public hospitals and five low‐tech hospitals consecutively included 2,332,654 adult patients seen in hospital EDs from January 2018 to December 2021. Hospitals belonging to the Catalan Institute of Health. The main variable was triage level, classified according to a standard for the Spanish structured triage system known as Sistema Español de Triaje. For each of the five triage levels, a negative binomial regression model adjusted for year and hospital was performed. The analysis was performed with the R 4.2.2 software. Results The mean age was 55.4 years. 51.4% were women. The distribution of patients according to the five triage levels was: level 1, 0.41% (n = 9565); level 2, 6.10% (n = 142,187); level 3, 40.2% (n = 938,203); level 4, 42.6% (n = 994,281); level 5, 10.6% (n = 248,418). The sociodemographic profile was similar in terms of gender and age: as the level of severity decreased, the number of women, mostly young, increased. In the period 2020–2021, the emergency rate increased for levels 1, 2 and 3, but levels 4 and 5 remained stable. Conclusion More than half of the patients…
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