National Trends in Mental Health-Related Emergency Department Visits Among Youth, 2011-2020.

Importance: There has been increasing concern about the burden of mental health problems among youth, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Trends in mental health-related emergency department (ED) visits are an important indicator of unmet outpatient mental health needs. Objective: To estimate annual trends in mental health-related ED visits among US children, adolescents, and young adults between 2011 and 2020. Design, Setting, and Participants: Data from 2011 to 2020 in the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, an annual cross-sectional national probability sample survey of EDs, was used to examine mental health-related visits for youths aged 6 to 24 years (unweighted = 49 515). Main Outcomes and Measures: Mental health-related ED visits included visits associated with psychiatric or substance use disorders and were identified by International Classification of Diseases-Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM; 2011-2015) and ICD-10-CM (2016-2020) discharge diagnosis codes or by reason-for-visit (RFV) codes. We estimated the annual proportion of mental health-related pediatric ED visits from 2011 to 2020. Subgroup analyses were performed by demographics and broad psychiatric diagnoses. Multivariable-adjusted logistic regression analyses estimated factors independently associated with mental health-related ED visits controlling for period effects. Results: From 2011 to 2020, the weighted number of pediatric mental health-related visits increased from 4.8 million (7.7% of all pediatric ED visits) to 7.5 million (13.1% of all ED visits) with an average annual percent change of 8.0% (95% CI, 6.1%-10.1%; P < .001). Significant linearly increasing trends were seen among children, adolescents, and young adults, with the greatest increase among adolescents and across sex and race and ethnicity. While all types of mental health-related visits significantly increased, suicide-related visits demonstrated the greatest increase from 0.9% to 4.2% of all pediatric ED visits (average annual percent change, 23.1% [95% CI, 19.0%-27.5%]; P < .001). Conclusions and Relevance: Over the last 10 years, the proportion of pediatric ED visits for mental health reasons has approximately doubled, including a 5-fold increase in suicide-related visits. These findings underscore an urgent need to improve crisis and emergency mental health service capacity for young people, especially for children experiencing suicidal symptoms.

COVID-19 and UK family carers: policy implications.

Informal (unpaid) carers are an integral part of all societies and the health and social care systems in the UK depend on them. Despite the valuable contributions and key worker status of informal carers, their lived experiences, wellbeing, and needs have been neglected during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this Health Policy, we bring together a broad range of clinicians, researchers, and people with lived experience as informal carers to share their thoughts on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on UK carers, many of whom have felt abandoned as services closed. We focus on the carers of children and young people and adults and older adults with mental health diagnoses, and carers of people with intellectual disability or neurodevelopmental conditions across different care settings over the lifespan. We provide policy recommendations with the aim of improving outcomes for all carers.

Impact of the SARS-COV-2 Pandemic on the Endovascular Treatment of Acute Stroke - an Italian Single-Center Experience.

OBJECTIVES: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic greatly influenced the overall quality of healthcare. The purpose of this study was to compare the time variables for acute stroke treatment and evaluate differences in the pre-hospital and in-hospital care before and during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, as well as between the first and second waves. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Observational and retrospective study from an Italian hospital, including patients who underwent thrombectomy between January 1st 2019 and December 31st 2020. RESULTS: Out of a total of 594 patients, 301 were treated in 2019 and 293 in 2020. The majority observed in 2019 came from spoke centers (67,1%), while in 2020 more than half (52%, p < 0.01) were evaluated at the hospital's emergency room directly (ER-NCGH). When compared to 2019, time metrics were globally increased in 2020, particularly in the ER-NCGH groups during the period of the first wave (N = 24 and N = 56, respectively): "Onset-to-door":50,5 vs 88,5, p < 0,01; "Arrival in Neuroradiology - groin":13 vs 25, p < 0,01; "Door-to-groin":118 vs 143,5, p = 0,02; "Onset-to-groin":180 vs 244,5, p < 0,01; "Groin-to-recanalization": 41 vs 49,5, p = 0,03. When comparing ER-NCGH groups between the first (N = 56) and second (N = 49) waves, there was an overall improvement in times, namely in the "Door-to-CT" (47,5 vs 37, p < 0,01), "Arrival in Neuroradiology - groin" (25 vs 20, p = 0,03) and "Onset-to-groin" (244,5 vs 227,5, p = 0,02). CONCLUSIONS: During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, treatment for stroke patients was delayed, particularly during the first wave. Reallocation of resources and the shutting down of spoke centers may have played a determinant role.

Impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 on Time Delay and Functional Outcome of Mechanical Thrombectomy in Tokyo, Japan.

OBJECTIVES: An association has been reported between delays in the onset-to-door (O2D) time for mechanical thrombectomy (MT) and outbreaks of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, the association between other MT time courses or functional outcomes and COVID-19 outbreaks remains unclear. We compared the time courses of stroke pathways or functional outcomes in 2020 (the COVID-19 era) with those in 2019 (the pre-COVID-19 era) in Tokyo, Japan. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective observational study used data from the Tokyo-tama-REgistry of Acute endovascular Thrombectomy (TREAT), a multicenter registry of MT for acute large vessel occlusion in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. Patients who had undergone acute MT from January 2019 to December 2020 were included. Patients were classified by the year they had undergone MT (2019 or 2020). RESULTS: In total, 477 patients were analyzed. O2D time was significantly longer in 2020 (146.0 min) than in 2019 (105.0 min; p = 0.034). No significant difference in door-to-puncture time (D2P) time or modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score 0-2 at 90 days was seen between 2019 and 2020. In the subgroup analysis, O2D time was significantly longer in the first half of 2020 compared with 2019. Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that the year 2020 was a independent predictor of longer O2D time, but not for mRS score 0-2 at 90 days. CONCLUSIONS: Although O2D time was significantly longer in the COVID-19 compared with the pre-COVID-19 era, D2P may not be significantly delayed and functional outcomes may not be different, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Demand for Essential Nonambulatory Neurosurgical Care Decreased While Acuity of Care Increased During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Surge.

BACKGROUND: In times of health resource reallocation, capacities must remain able to meet a continued demand for essential, nonambulatory neurosurgical acute care. This study sought to characterize the demand for and provision of neurosurgical acute care during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. METHODS: This single-center cross-sectional observational analysis compared nonambulatory neurosurgical consult encounters during the peri-surge period (March 9 to May 31, 2020) with those during an analogous period in 2019. Outcomes included consult volume, distribution of problem types, disease severity, and rate of acute operative intervention. RESULTS: A total of 1494 neurosurgical consults were analyzed. Amidst the pandemic surge, 583 consults were seen, which was 6.4 standard deviations below the mean among analogous 2016-2019 periods (mean 873; standard deviation 45, P = 0.001). Between 2019 and 2020, the proportion of degenerative spine consults decreased in favor of spinal trauma (25.6% vs. 34% and 51.9% vs. 41.4%, P = 0.088). Among aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage cases, poor-grade (Hunt and Hess grades 4-5) presentations were more common (30% vs. 14.8%, P = 0.086). A greater proportion of pandemic era consults resulted in acute operative management, with an unchanged absolute frequency of acutely operative consults (123/583 [21.1%] vs. 120/911 [13.2%], P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Neurosurgical consult volume during the pandemic surge hit a 5-year institutional low. Amidst vast reallocation of health care resources, demand for high-acuity nonambulatory neurosurgical care continued and proportionally increased for greater-acuity pathologies. In our continued current pandemic as well as any future situations of mass health resource reallocation, neurosurgical acute care capacities must be preserved.

Geriatrics: Moving forward with 2020 vision.

Geriatricians have long debated the parameters, positioning, and prospects of their specialty. The year 2020 started full of promise as many organizations anticipated assessing themselves using perfect, or 2020, vision. While challenging on several levels, the momentous combination of events in 2020-the COVID-19 pandemic, Racial Justice Movement, and the November elections-provided Geriatric Medicine several opportunities to firmly secure a position in the mainstream. As we reflect on the new perspectives, programs, and partnerships initiated in 2020, five broader lessons emerge that can help safeguard the future of Geriatrics: the field could employ more intentional "direct to consumer" marketing strategies, expand the scope of what it means to be a patient advocate, pursue new strategic partnerships, take the opportunity to address racial injustice, and leverage existing skillsets to expand scope of care for patients. Given the interdisciplinary nature of Geriatrics, it is fitting that many of these lessons build upon this collaborative philosophy and are derived from domains outside of health care. So in an unexpected way, the events of 2020 may actually help Geriatrics see, with 2020 vision, how to remain mainstream. With this new clarity, Geriatrics holds renewed promise to truly become specialists in whole-person care and it is our hope that, with insight from the lessons shared here, the specialty brings this vision to fruition in the current decade and beyond.

Pulmonary Embolism Response Team utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may predispose patients to venous thromboembolism (VTE). Limited data are available on the utilization of the Pulmonary Embolism Response Team (PERT) in the setting of the COVID-19 global pandemic. We performed a single-center study to evaluate treatment, mortality, and bleeding outcomes in patients who received PERT consultations in March and April 2020, compared to historical controls from the same period in 2019. Clinical data were abstracted from the electronic medical record. The primary study endpoints were inpatient mortality and GUSTO moderate-to-severe bleeding. The frequency of PERT utilization was nearly threefold higher during March and April 2020 (n = 74) compared to the same period in 2019 (n = 26). During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was significantly less PERT-guided invasive treatment (5.5% vs 23.1%, p = 0.02) with a numerical but not statistically significant trend toward an increase in the use of systemic fibrinolytic therapy (13.5% vs 3.9%, p = 0.3). There were nonsignificant trends toward higher in-hospital mortality or moderate-to-severe bleeding in patients receiving PERT consultations during the COVID-19 period compared to historical controls (mortality 14.9% vs 3.9%, p = 0.18 and moderate-to-severe bleeding 35.1% vs 19.2%, p = 0.13). In conclusion, PERT utilization was nearly threefold higher during the COVID-19 pandemic than during the historical control period. Among patients evaluated by PERT, in-hospital mortality or moderate-to-severe bleeding were not significantly different, despite being numerically higher, while invasive therapy was utilized less frequently during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The development and deployment of a model for hospital-level COVID-19 associated patient demand intervals from consistent estimators (DICE).

Hospitals commonly project demand for their services by combining their historical share of regional demand with forecasts of total regional demand. Hospital-specific forecasts of demand that provide prediction intervals, rather than point estimates, may facilitate better managerial decisions, especially when demand overage and underage are associated with high, asymmetric costs. Regional point forecasts of patient demand are commonly available, e.g., for the number of people requiring hospitalization due to an epidemic such as COVID-19. However, even in this common setting, no probabilistic, consistent, computationally tractable forecast is available for the fraction of patients in a region that a particular institution should expect. We introduce such a forecast, DICE (Demand Intervals from Consistent Estimators). We describe its development and deployment at an academic medical center in California during the 'second wave' of COVID-19 in the Unite States. We show that DICE is consistent under mild assumptions and suitable for use with perfect, biased and unbiased regional forecasts. We evaluate its performance on empirical data from a large academic medical center as well as on synthetic data.