
Long Island emergency departments see 50% drop in visits

Mount Sinai South Nassau is among the Long Island hospitals reporting a steep drop in emergency department visits during the coronavirus pandemic. Credit: Joe Calderone
Long Island hospitals are reporting that because of the coronavirus they are seeing 50% reductions in the number of patients headed to emergency departments.
Doctors said patients who would otherwise visit a hospital with cardiac, neurological or other life-threatening events have avoided examinations because they are afraid of contracting COVID-19.
That fear will lead to more bad outcomes well past when the pandemic subsides, doctors predict.
"It's like the ostrich defense, where people stick their head in the ground and hope the truck doesn't hit you," said Dr. Hal Skopicki, chief of cardiology at Stony Brook Medicine and the co-director at Stony Brook University Heart Institute. "But you're going to get hit, unless there isn't a truck."
At the pandemic's outset, hospitals were telling people to stay away if possible, and that played a role in creating fear, said Dr. Fred Davis, associate chair of the emergency department at Northwell Health's Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
"Initially, we wanted people to stay safe, and not come in for something they could take care of at an urgent care or primary care office," Davis said. "We weren't necessarily telling people not to come in at all. I understand, however, why that message could be confusing."
Now, health systems are reporting that for the first time since the pandemic took hold on Long Island in early March, the number of non-COVID-19 patients is outnumbering the number of coronavirus patients.
For example, at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, COVID-19 patients as of Wednesday morning dipped under 50% of its patient population, compared to 56% a week ago, a spokeswoman said.
At Northwell, the number of COVID-19 patients fell below 50% of total patients late last week.
Part of the trend is because of the drop in COVID-19 patients, while some of it can be attributed to more people being willing to come in for procedures, medical experts said.
The willingness has yet to translate to the emergency department locally or nationally, according to emergency department stats.
Four in five respondents to an American College of Emergency Physicians poll released last week said they are concerned about contracting COVID-19 from another patient or visitor if they need to go to the emergency room.
The poll of 2,201 adults also found that 73% of respondents are concerned about overstressing the health care system. About 60% were concerned with not being able to bring visitors with them to the emergency department.
"Here, Northwell, the largest health system in the state, usually sees more than 2,100 emergency department visits daily throughout its health system," said Terry Lynam, a spokesman at the health system.
"We have been hovering between 900 and 1,100 the past several weeks," he said.
Catholic Health Services, which runs six hospitals on Long Island, has seen a drop of up to 55% at some of its emergency departments, said Dr. Christopher Raio, its chief of emergency medicine.
Stony Brook, Mount Sinai South Nassau and NYU Winthrop also have reported drops of between 40% and 50%.
Executives said the fall in emergency department visits has been across all disciplines.
"I understand the fear," said Dr. Eric Morley, associate professor and clinical director at the Department of Emergency Medicine at Stony Brook Medicine. "But what really scares me is people staying home when they're having heart attacks or strokes."
The new message has to include "letting everyone know that we have all the same resources to handle everything," including strokes, trauma and heart attacks, Raio at Catholic Health Services said.
Raio added that "people are coming much later in a disease course than normal, and logically that means patients are going to, on average, have worse outcomes.
"That's something we would like to avoid," Raio said.