HealthDay News — Hospitalized COVID-19 patients cared for in hospitals with the greatest surges in caseload have twofold higher mortality threat than patients in hospitals not experiencing surges, according to a study published on the net July 6 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Sameer S. Kadri, M.D., from the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues evaluated the association amongst hospitals’ severity-weighted COVID-19 caseload and COVID-19 mortality threat. The evaluation integrated adult COVID-19-coded inpatients admitted from March to August 2020 with discharge dispositions by October 2020.
The researchers discovered that of the 144,116 inpatients with COVID-19 at 558 U.S. hospitals, 54.2 % have been admitted to hospitals in the best surge index decile and, all round, 17.6 % of patients died. Crude COVID-19 mortality decreased more than time across all surge index strata, but the threat for death improved in the 50 to 75, 75 to 90, 90 to 95, 95 to 99, and >99 percentiles (odds ratios, 1.11, 1.24, 1.42, 1.59, and 2.00, respectively) compared with nonsurging (<50th surge index percentile) hospital-months. The association amongst surge index and mortality was visible across ward, intensive care unit, and intubated patients. Despite higher corticosteroid use and more judicious intubation in the course of later and larger-surging months, the surge-mortality partnership was stronger in June to August than in March to May. It is estimated that almost 1 in 4 COVID-19 deaths (23.2 %) have been potentially attributable to hospitals strained by surging caseload.
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“Many COVID-19 deaths may be preventable through prudent public health and health care organizational interventions that minimize the effect of surges,” the authors create. “Bolstering preventive measures and supporting surging hospitals will save many lives.”
