Impact of COVID-19 on Patients Hospitalized with ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction in the United States during the Early Pandemic: An Analysis of Outcomes, Care Delivery, and Racial Disparities in Mortality.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted healthcare delivery to patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). The aim of our retrospective study was to determine the effect of COVID-19 on inpatient STEMI outcomes and to investigate changes in cardiac care delivery during 2020. We utilized the National Inpatient Sample database to examine inpatient mortality and cardiac procedures among STEMI patients with and without COVID-19. In our study, STEMI patients with COVID-19 had higher inpatient mortality (47.4% vs. 11.2%, aOR: 3.8, 95% CI: 3.2-4.6, p < 0.001), increased length of stay (9.0 days vs. 4.3 days, p < 0.001) and higher cost of hospitalization (USD 172,518 vs. USD 131,841, p = 0.004) when compared to STEMI patients without COVID-19. STEMI patients with COVID-19 also received significantly less invasive cardiac procedures (coronary angiograms: 30.4% vs. 50.8%, p < 0.001; PCI: 32.9% vs. 70.1%, p < 0.001; CABG: 0.9% vs. 4.1%, p < 0.001) and were more likely to receive systemic thrombolytic therapy (4.2% vs. 1.1%, p < 0.001) when compared to STEMI patients without COVID-19. Our findings are the result of complications of SARS-CoV2 infection as well as alterations in healthcare delivery due to the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic.