ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Low back pain is a common reason for presentation to the Emergency Department (ED). However, there are limited large-scale, recent data on the epidemiology, disposition, and medication administration for this condition. The objective of this was to assess the incidence, admission rates, medication administrations, and discharge prescriptions among ED visits for low back pain in the United States. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study of ED presentations for low back pain from 1/1/2016 to 12/31/2023 using the Epic Cosmos database. All ED visits for adults with low back pain identified by ICD-10 codes were included. Outcomes included admission rates, distribution of opioid, benzodiazepine, (non-benzodiazepine) muscle relaxant, acetaminophen, NSAID, and corticosteroid medications administered in the ED, and distribution of opioid, benzodiazepine, muscle relaxant, and corticosteroid medications given upon discharge. Subgroup analyses were performed by specific medication. RESULTS: Of 207,154,419 ED encounters, 12,241,240 (5.9%) were due to back pain with 1,957,299 of these (16.0%) admitted. The admission rate increased over time from 12.8% to 17.1%. The most common medication given in the ED was opioids (40.7%), followed by acetaminophen (37.8%), NSAIDs (22.6%), muscle relaxants (18.4%) benzodiazepines (12.8%), and corticosteroids (5.5%). The most common medications prescribed upon discharge were muscle relaxants (32.1%), followed by opioids (23.2%), corticosteroids (12.2%), and benzodiazepines (3.0%). CONCLUSION: Low back pain represents a common reason for presentation to the ED, and admissions have been increasing over time. Opioids remain the most common ED medication, whereas muscle relaxants have arisen as the most common discharge prescription. These findings can help inform health policy decisions, resource allocation, and evidence-based interventions for medication administration.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The objective of the study was to understand the immediate utility of health information exchange (HIE) on emergency department (ED) providers by interviewing them shortly after the information was retrieved. Prior studies of physician perceptions regarding HIE have only been performed outside of the care environment. METHODS: Trained research assistants interviewed resident physicians, physician assistants and attending physicians using a semi-structured questionnaire within two hours of making a HIE request. The responses were recorded, then transcribed for qualitative analysis. The transcribed interviews were analyzed for emerging qualitative themes. RESULTS: We analyzed 40 interviews obtained from 29 providers. Primary qualitative themes discovered included the following: drivers for requests for outside information; the importance of unexpected information; historical lab values as reference points; providing context when determining whether to admit or discharge a patient; the importance of information in refining disposition; improved confidence of provider; and changes in decisions for diagnostic imaging. CONCLUSION: ED providers are driven to use HIE when they're missing a known piece of information. This study finds two additional impacts not previously reported. First, providers sometimes find additional unanticipated useful information, supporting a workflow that lowers the threshold to request external information. Second, providers sometimes report utility when no changes to their existing plan are made as their confidence is increased based on external records. Our findings are concordant with previous studies in finding exchanged information is useful to provide context for interpreting lab results, making admission decisions, and prevents repeat diagnostic imaging.
