Frailty Explains Variation in Emergency Department Use for Older Veterans During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Older adults were critically vulnerable to disruptions in health care during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is not known if changes in ED utilization varied based on patient characteristics. Using a cohort of older Veterans, we examined changes in ED visit rates based on four characteristics of interest: age, race, area deprivation index, and frailty.

Methods

Participants were aged ≥65, with ≥2 visits in primary or geriatric clinics between 02/02/2018-05/07/2019. An adjusted negative binomial regression model was constructed for each characteristic. We report mean counts of all ED visits by quarter for subgroups separately, and report rate ratios to compare ED visits in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic to the year before.

Results

Patients with compl

SUBMITTER: Seidenfeld J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11378967 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature