Why the study?
Chest pain is a common complaint in emergency departments, but demographic, care, and cost trends over time had not been described across a national sample.
Between 2006 and 2016, US ED visits for chest pain increased significantly, but admission rates and associated inpatient costs declined substantially.
Trends in ED chest pain visits may inform resource planning; leaves open prospective studies on optimal care and costs.
BACKGROUND: Chest pain is a common complaint in EDs. In this study, we describe demographic, care and cost trends in US ED visits for chest pain over 11 years. METHODS: This is a retrospective descriptive study of trends in utilisation and care of ED chest pain visits from 2006 to 2016) using data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project database, a national sample of US ED visits and hospitalisations. RESULTS: From 2006 to 2016, there were 42.48 million chest pain visits. Visits per 100 000 persons increased from 1140.4 in 2006 to 1611.7 in 2016 (p<0.001). The chest pain inpatient admission rate declined from 19% in 2006 to 3.9% in 2016 (p<0.001); associated inpatient hospitalisation costs declined from $10.4 billion (2006-2008) to $6.2 billion (2012-2014). CONCLUSION: From 2006 to 2016, ED visits in the USA for chest pain increased with a significant decline in admission rates and inpatient hospitalisation costs.
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Aalam et al. (2020) studied this question.
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