The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdown on Routine Hospital Care for Other Illnesses
Ralf Kuhlen, Claudia Winklmair, Daniel Schmithausen, Jens Schick, Peter Christian Scriba
Abstract
The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdown on Routine Hospital Care for Other IllnessesThe COVID-19 pandemic continues to present enormous challenges to all healthcare systems.The number of patients with COVID-19 per se, as well as the measures taken to contain and control the pandemic have had far-reaching consequences for patient care.Reports from all parts of the world have confirmed a clear reduction in the numbers of medical emergencies seen in hospitals.We report on the extent of the altered healthcare reality in 310 hospitals of the Quality Medicine Initiative (Initiative Qualitätsmedizin-IQM) during the lockdown. MethodWe analyzed claims data from 310 IQM hospitals, which made their data available on a voluntary basis immediately after the study period.The data were worked up by 3M in accordance with routine practice in the IQM, adhering to the current version of the German In-Patient Quality Indicators (GIQI) from the hospitals' billing datasets according to § 21 of Germany's Hospital Reimbursement Act (Krankenhausentgeltgesetz, KHEntgG), which contains structured data on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), the German coding system for operations and procedures (Operationen-und Prozedurenschlüssel, OPS), age, sex, and reason for admission/discharge (1, 2).Furthermore, we evaluated the codes U07.1 for COVID-19 with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 and U07.2 for clinically suspected COVID-19 without confirmation of the virus. CORRESPONDENCE TABLECase numbers and mean inpatient length of stay (LOS) in days for the different study periods* * * Percentage changes relate to the comparison with the same period in the preceding year.The individual indicators are representative indicators taken from the default GIQI of the IQM (1, 2).The numbering of the indicators was maintained in accordance with the valid IQM handbook of definitions; concrete inclusions and exclusions are listed there.