Healthcare Encounter and Financial Impact of COVID-19 on Children's Hospitals.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-2021
Identifier
DOI: 10.12788/jhm.3572
Abstract
Children's hospitals responded to COVID-19 by limiting nonurgent healthcare encounters, conserving personal protective equipment, and restructuring care processes to mitigate viral spread. We assessed year-over-year trends in healthcare encounters and hospital charges across US children's hospitals before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We performed a retrospective analysis, comparing healthcare encounters and inflation-adjusted charges from 26 tertiary children's hospitals reporting to the PROSPECT database from February 1 to June 30 in 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) and 2020 (during the COVID-19 pandemic). All children's hospitals experienced similar trends in healthcare encounters and charges during the study period. Inpatient bed-days, emergency department visits, and surgeries were lower by a median 36%, 65%, and 77%, respectively, per hospital by the week of April 15 (the nadir) in 2020 compared with 2019. Across the study period in 2020, children's hospitals experienced a median decrease of $276 million in charges.
Journal Title
J Hosp Med
Volume
16
Issue
4
First Page
223
Last Page
226
MeSH Keywords
COVID-19; Child; Delivery of Health Care; Emergency Service, Hospital; Health Care Costs; Hospitals, Pediatric; Humans; Inpatients; Retrospective Studies
Keywords
COVID-19; Child; Delivery of Health Care; Emergency Service, Hospital; Health Care Costs; Hospitals, Pediatric; Humans; Inpatients; Retrospective Studies
Recommended Citation
Synhorst DC, Bettenhausen JL, Hall M, et al. Healthcare Encounter and Financial Impact of COVID-19 on Children's Hospitals. J Hosp Med. 2021;16(4):223-226. doi:10.12788/jhm.3572
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