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Declining number of cases of up to 79% for projectable treatments during Corona crisis

The latest WidO report confirms the expected decline of cases because political measures during corona lockdown in German hospitals.

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The AOK Research Institute (WIdO) published a report on the development of hospital cases during Corona lockdown. Aim of the report is the evaluation of the declining number of cases in March and April 2020 of the in-patient sector in Germany, focusing on desired and undesired effects of the political measures on healthcare.

As a result, significant declines of cases (of 39%) were registered. The largest decline could be detected for “musculoskeletal disorders” with 65% and a minus of 22.258 cases. According to WIdO, the results represent the decline of cases for projectable and non-urgent treatments and surgeries due to desired from the federal level.

The largest decreases in the number of cases were recorded for osteoarthritis-related hip replacement surgery (79%), for breast reconstruction surgery (76%) and on the intestine (70%). WIdO reports that urgent and life-threatening diseases such as thigh fractures, acute appendix inflammation or tumor removal were also treated in mostly constant case volumes during the lockdown phase. However, according to WIdO, there were surprisingly sharp declines in the treatment of heart attacks (31%) strokes (18%), as well as in TiAs (37%). WIdO suspects that these sharp declines in the treatment of emergencies indicate that patients did not or did belated alert the ambulance during the lockdown phase, because of fear of a corona infection. Since the 15th calendar week (6th to 10th April 2020), the number of in-patient shows a trend reverse and the number of in-patient treatment cases is slowly increasing again.

"The Corona crisis reached us in Germany at the beginning of a hospital structural reform," says Sven Sauermann of Healthcare Heads. "We are eagerly awaiting further analysis and the political discussions with this data. The next federal election is just around the corner. We expect that the course will be set here for some of the big topics such as specialist medical and in-patient care close to home as well as investment financing. The issue of evidence for medical devices is also likely to become more acute in principle." If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us, please click here for the full report.

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