Critical Pediatric Hospitalizations Decreased During COVID-19 Pandemic

When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020, individuals have been suggested to not current to the hospital with noncritical sickness to keep away from overburdening the healthcare system. In Wisconsin, pediatric essential care personnel famous a steep lower in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admissions throughout spring 2020.

One research, introduced nearly throughout this week’s 51st Critical Care Congress, selected Wisconsin to review how COVID-19 affected pediatric essential care as a result of the state has 5 PICUs that work collaboratively. The analysis staff sought to find out whether or not spring 2020 decline in PICU admissions was distinct from typical seasonal decline, in addition to if sure forms of PICU admissions contributed to this decline.

The investigators used the Virtual Pediatric Systems (VPS, LLC) registry to gather admissions knowledge from all 5 PICUs. The research comprised 25390 PICU admissions from March 25, 2015-May 13, 2020. The pooled knowledge included approximated admissions dates, related diagnoses, and diagnostic classes. PICU admissions have been categorized as scheduled or unscheduled, and trauma or non-trauma.

The COVID-19 research interval was March 25-May 13, 2020, throughout which Wisconsin’s Safer at Home Orders have been in impact. This interval was in comparison with seasonally matched PICU admissions over the prior 5 years.

The investigators discovered that the speed of PICU admissions dropped from 94±10 in the course of the management interval to 57±11 in the course of the COVID-19 research interval. This lower was 41% decrease than anticipated by prior seasonal PICU admissions dips. The investigators summarized their outcomes: “Respiratory viral admissions fell from 13±5 to 4±4 (72% decrease than anticipated, p< 0.001), scheduled admissions fell from 28±6 to 13±7 (53% decrease than anticipated, p< 0.001), and trauma admissions fell from 5±2 to 4±2 admissions per week (32% decrease than anticipated, p=0.049).”

Comprising 68% of the PICU admission decline have been the classes of respiratory viral admissions, scheduled admissions, and trauma admissions. The research outcomes appear to verify that Wisconsin’s Safer at Home Orders ensured fewer PICU hospital admissions.

The research, “A Collaborative, Retrospective Study of Pediatric Critical Illness in Wisconsin During COVID-19,” was introduced on April 18, 2022, in the course of the 51st Critical Care Congress.