Dive Brief:
- Texas Health Presbyterian experienced a steep drop in emergency room visits, patient volume and revenue in October, after admitting Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan late in September and two nurses subsequently contracted the disease.
- Emergency room visits dropped by 53% or 2,336 patients; its daily census declined by 21% from 428 to 337; surgeries dropped by 25% or 165 patients, and its revenue dipped by 25% or $8.1 million through the first 20 days of the month, Texas Health recently reported.
- A hospital spokesperson said the losses were because the emergency department was on diversionary status from Oct. 12 to Oct. 20. Physicians were also transferring patients to other facilities. The parent company, Texas Health Resources, has not had declines at its other hospitals, the organization said. They also noted that no legal claims have been filed and its insurance and liquidity should be sufficient to cover losses related to the patient decline.
Dive Insight:
People aren't going to the hospital because they are afraid. Regardless of the information known about Ebola and the difficulty of transmission, this is the kind of epidemic that causes paranoia. Since Thomas Eric Duncan was diagnosed in late September, more than 5,000 false alarms have been reported by healthcare providers. This is similar to other conditions like swine flu in 2009. Even in areas where the disease hadn't been reported, parents were rushing their children to emergency rooms out of fear. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine reported in 2010 that swine flu fear increased pediatric ER visits by 20% when the media was reporting on the condition. According to the Washington Post, the study's author said the experience was similar to an increase in head injury visits after Natasha Richardson's death and sarin gas attacks in Tokyo in 1995. This time, people are worried and ER visits are up—just not at Texas Health.