TY - JOUR T1 - How COVID-19 has changed the unselected medical take: an observational study JF - Clinical Medicine JO - Clin Med SP - e229 LP - e233 DO - 10.7861/clinmed.2020-0483 VL - 20 IS - 6 AU - Kai Man Alexander Ho AU - Ananthi Anandhakrishnan AU - Arun Mahay AU - Yiwen Soo AU - Laurence B Lovat AU - Andrew P Rochford Y1 - 2020/11/01 UR - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/20/6/e229.abstract N2 - Introduction COVID-19 has had a profound effect on the NHS. Little information has been published as to how the unselected medical take has been affected.Methods We retrospectively reviewed patients who were referred to general medicine during March 2020. We compared clinical outcomes of patients with and without COVID-19.Results 814 patients were included, comprising 777 unique patients. On average, 26 patients were admitted per day. 38% of admitted patients were suspected of COVID-19, with greater numbers of COVID-19 patients in the second half compared to the first half of the month (p<0.001). Logistic regression analyses showed suspected COVID-19 was an independent predictor for inpatient mortality (odds ratio [OR] = 6.09, p<0.001) and 30-day mortality (OR = 4.66, p<0.001).Conclusions COVID-19 patients had worse clinical outcomes and increased healthcare use compared to non-COVID-19 patients. Our study highlights some of the challenges in healthcare provision faced during this pandemic. ER -