Trauma Incidence During the New Jersey COVID-19 Stay-At-Home Order: A Multicenter Study

Given the early surge of COVID-19 in New Jersey (NJ), a statewide executive order (EO) to stay-at-home was instituted on March 22, 2020. We hypothesized that the EO would result in a decreased number of trauma admissions, length of stay, and resources utilized in trauma patients at NJ trauma centers. In an institutional review board-approved, retrospective, multicenter study, trauma registries at three level one trauma centers in NJ were queried from March 22 to June 14 in 2020 and compared to the same timeframe the year prior. Epidemiological and clinical data were obtained including demographics, select preexisting conditions, mechanism of injury, injury severity score, resources utilized, and outcomes. 1859 trauma patients were evaluated during the EO versus 2201 the year prior. During the EO, trauma patients were less likely to be transferred from another hospital (21% versus 29% P