Trends in surgical caseloads during COVID-19

Editor's Note

Urban hospitals bounced back faster than rural hospitals from surgical caseload decreases caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, finds a new study released May 13 by Caresyntax, a Boston-based developer of surgical intelligence and automation technologies.

The study, “The State of Surgery: An Analysis of Surgical Trends During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” reviews more than 2.5 million surgical cases throughout 2020.

Among the findings:

• Rural and urban hospitals both saw steep declines in surgical volume in April 2020—at 126% and 123%, respectively. By October, however, the declines in volume were 19% for rural hospitals and 14% for urban hospitals.
• For-profit out performed not-for-profit hospitals in surgical volume throughout the year. In May, for-profits had double the case volume growth of not-for-profit hospitals at 44% vs 22%.
• Cardiovascular procedures had the smallest decline in April at 65%, but then struggled more than others to rebound.
• Elective procedures saw a 193% decline in case volume in April.
• General surgery procedures had a 14% drop in case volume throughout the year.
• Hospitals with a higher case mix index had a less severe drop in surgical volume.
• ORs using data analytics technology retained 16% more of their surgical caseload through July 2020, compared to the national average.

The researchers estimate that it could take up to 2 years for hospitals to work through their surgical backlogs. In general, the US saw a 35% reduction in surgical volume just from March to July 2020, contributing to more than $200 billion lost.