MESSAGE FROM THE CEO T
he COVID-19 lockdown halted elective surgeries and moved most routine care online. This difficult step was necessary to save space in hospitals for those who needed immediate care and to make sure that our healthcare workers had sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE). However, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that this precaution had an unintended consequence: even people who needed immediate care stayed away from emergency rooms for fear of contracting COVID-19. According to CDC data, during the 10 weeks after the US declared a national
emergency, March 15–May 23, 2020, about 23 percent fewer people visited emergency rooms for heart attack, 20 percent fewer for stroke care and about 10 percent fewer for diabetes care compared to the preceding 10-week period of January 5–March 14, 2020. By May 2020, data from the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) found that emergency department visits had declined 42 percent during the early months of the pandemic. CDC used data from its NSSP to assess trends in emergency department visits from week 1, 2019, through week 21, 2020, for the above three life-threatening health conditions.
What are the implications of this indirect effect of the lockdown? A study conducted at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery in Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore, Maryland, concluded that assuming elective orthopedic surgery resumed in June, at best, it would take seven months until the healthcare system would be able to revert back to the steady-state volume or performance of 90 percent of the expected pre-pandemic forecasted volume. At worst, it would take 16 months to reach the steady-set volume. A Rush University Medical Center report concluded that two months with little or no cancer screenings could postpone diagnosis of cancer in 24,650 patients. Another study published on PubMed concluded that a three-month surgery backlog translates into nearly 5 million surgical cases. Delays will cause costly treatment of more advanced disease; and disease progression in breast, colorectal and lung cancer is associated with an annual increase of $50,000 per case. Given the findings of the studies above, deferring elective surgery one more
time would not be in the best interest of public health or the healthcare system. An ASC Quality Collaboration survey shows that in more than 84,000 procedures performed in ASCs during March and April, only 16 individuals tested positive withing two weeks of surgery. Further, all were asymptomatic before and during their procedure, and none of those instances have been definitively ascribed to the episode of care provided at the ASC. ASCA included the fact above in a June 30 letter to Congress. If PPE is in short supply, we would need to make certain those treating
ASC Focus interested in hearing from you.
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COVID-19 patients have what they need. If there are no shortages, however, ASCs are a terrific alternative for treating patients as we continue to battle this virus.
Bill Prentice Chief Executive Officer
ASC FOCUS SEPTEMBER 2020 |
ascfocus.org
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