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Missed opportunities to use rapid influenza testing and severity assessment to avoid hospital admission: A cohort study from an East London District General Hospital
Author(s) -
Dominic Catherine,
Welch Catherine,
Melzer Mark
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/jmv.26376
Subject(s) - medicine , emergency medicine , comorbidity , emergency department , intensive care , cohort , intensive care unit , outbreak , intensive care medicine , virology , psychiatry
Abstract Annual outbreaks of seasonal influenza cause a substantial health burden. The aim of this study was to compare patient demographic/clinical data in two influenza patient groups presenting to hospital; those requiring O 2 or critical care admission and those requiring less intensive treatment. The study was conducted from 1 December 2017 until 1 April 2019 at a district general hospital in East London. Patient demographic and clinical information was collected for all patients who had tested influenza positive by near‐patient testing. χ 2 test was used for categorical variables to see if there were significant differences for those admitted and the Wilcoxon rank‐sum test to compare the length of inpatient stay. Of 127 patients, 56 (44.1%) required oxygen or critical care. There were significant increases in National Early Warning Score (NEWS) observations ( P %3C .001), Charlson comorbidity index ( P = .049), length of inpatient stay ( P %3C .001), and a strong association with increasing age ( P = .066) when the more intensive treatment group was compared with the less intensive treatment group. A total of 13 (18.3%) of 71 patients not requiring oxygen or critical care were not admitted to the hospital. Following rapid influenza testing, NEWS scores, comorbidities, and age should be incorporated into a decision tool in Accident and Emergency to aid hospital admission or discharge decisions.