Between-hospital care referrals for severe alcohol-related liver disease during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 to 2022

In: Alcohol and alcoholism: the international journal of the Medical Council on Alcoholism (MCA) and the journal of the European Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (ESBRA), Band 59, Heft 1

Abstract

Abstract
Increased alcohol consumption during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is projected to impact alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) morbidity and mortality. Inter-hospital escalation-of-care referral requests to our tertiary-care hepatology unit were analyzed from January 2020 through December 2022. Most requests to our center were for ALD with an increase in requests from intermediate care units, suggestive of higher acuity illness.