Comparison of emergency department workloads before and during the COVID-19 pandemic as assessed using relative value units

Abstract

Objective This study aimed to assess and compare emergency department (ED) workloads by using relative value units (RVUs) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods This retrospective observational study investigated the RVUs of a single ED from 2019 to 2021. We calculated the mean number of patients per day (PPD) for each year and selected the days when the number of patients was equal to the yearly mean PPD for each of the three years. We calculated the total RVUs per day and RVUs per patient and compared them.