ASSESSING CLINICAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL VARIABLES AMONG THE FIRST 500 COVID-19 PATIENTS IN AN URBAN EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT N Akpan BS, M Fondong BS, A Tusa BS, P DeBlieux MD, D Janz MD, S Rhodes MD, Evrim Oral, PhD, L Moreno-Walton MD, MS, MSCR, FAAEM Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA INTRODUCTION: As of January 12, 2022, there have been over 62 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 840,000 deaths in the United States. The mean duration of hospitalization for admitted patients was between 4-21 days. In addition, certain comorbidities predisposed patients to worse health outcomes when infected with COVID-19. STUDY: Our study sought to characterize the first 500 COVID-19 patients seen in the emergency department (ED) of an urban hospital by analyzing disposition, discharge status, patient demographics, oxygen requirement, ventilatory intervention, and comorbidities. We hypothesized older patients with lower oxygen saturation, increased need for ventilatory support, and certain comorbidities and demographics were more likely to be admitted to the hospital. This study was a retrospective chart review of the first 500 COVID-19 patients at an urban ED between March 9, 2020 – March 24, 2020. We queried medical records for patients meeting qualifying criteria. Data was collected using REDCap including basic demographics and comorbidities. All statistical analyses were carried out utilizing SAS 9.4. We used Fisher’s exact or Pearson chi-square tests to assess associations between categorical variables and disposition status and utilized two sample t-tests. Our study population consisted of 56% females. Regarding race demographics, 88.1% of total patients were black, 4.8% were white, and 0.6% were biracial. 5% of the patients identified as Hispanic. 0.4% were American Indian. The most common comorbidities were hypertension (50%), diabetes (28.8%), and obesity (56.6%). The mean age for admitted patients was 56 years old, significantly higher than the mean age of discharged patients, which was 46 years old (p<0.0001). Data analysis indicated that 74.6% of the patients were discharged home after being seen in the ED, and 25.4% were admitted to the floor. We observed statistically significant associations between hypertension (p<0.0001), diabetes (p<0.0001), chronic kidney disease (p<0.0001), obesity (p=0.0022), cardiac disease (p<0.0001), and pulmonary disease (p<0.0001). DISCUSSION: Preliminary data analysis suggests Black patients of older age fared worse health outcomes when infected with COVID-19. Additionally, there were statistically significant associations between all pre-existing conditions and disposition statuses except asthma.
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