In the analysis, patients were categorized into those who underwent COVID-19 procedures in 70% of hospitals where resources were taken from EDs by physicians without a specialized intubation, or those who received ED care by the same physicians who were trained to perform to-be-treated intubations (3/6).
“These findings challenge assumptions in weak POS guidelines that transport and medicine care providers have separate medical overtreatment programs,” add the authors, who are current members of the American Thoracic Society.
“Further, as appropriate, patients must be screened routinely and treated for symptomatic pulmonary embolism, including primary and multidisciplinary care due to the high morbidity and the high costs of the hospital-based systems.”
Pulmonary embolisms occurring within hours of hospital arrival are common in critically ill patients due to prolonged shutdown of airways, which limit a patient’s ability to breathe normally—and lead to complications.
However, the scope of this disparity was not assessed in the current analysis with EDs being the target for the analysis, as some infections may not be as common in the ED than in the hospital during the course of care.
“Future studies should explore if bias occurs as a side effect of procedures in the ED, rather than an outcome of the procedures, as we suspected.”
