• Alexander T Janke, Adrian D Haimovich, Courtney W Mangus, Christopher Fung, Neil Kamdar, Prashant V Mahajan, and Keith E Kocher.
• VA Center for Cliniical Management Research, Clinician Scholars Program, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Ann Arbor, MI; Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Electronic address: atjanke@med.umich.edu.
• Ann Emerg Med. 2024 Nov 1; 84 (5): 530539530-539.

Study ObjectiveTo assess the rate and characteristics of acute pulmonary embolism (PE) cases diagnosed in the emergency department (ED) following an ED discharge visit within 10 days.MethodsThis is a retrospective analysis of 40 EDs in a statewide clinical registry from 2017 to 2022. We identified adult patients with acute PEs diagnosed in the ED. We assessed PE cases wherein a prior ED visit for the same patient resulting in discharge had taken place within 10 days without interval hospitalization. We then characterized the overall rate of revisit PE cases per overall acute PE cases and per 10,000 ED discharges. We also reported on subgroups of revisit cases where the preceding visit resulted in diagnosis of COVID-19, other cardiopulmonary conditions, and cardiopulmonary symptom codes (eg, chest pain, unspecified).ResultsOf 24,525 acute PEs, 1,202 (4.9%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 4.6% to 5.2%) had an ED discharge within the preceding 10 days (2.0 per 10,000 ED discharges, 95% CI 1.9 to 2.1). Two hundred thirty-three (19.4%) were originally discharged with a COVID-19 diagnosis, 107 (8.9%) were originally discharged with another cardiopulmonary condition, and 201 (16.7%) were cases discharged with a nonspecific cardiopulmonary symptom code. Discharges with diagnoses of COVID-19, pneumonia, and pleural effusion had higher rates of revisits with acute PE.ConclusionIn this retrospective analysis, about 1 in 20 acute PEs and 2 in 10,000 ED discharges were associated with an ED revisit for acute PE. Some cases may represent potential diagnostic opportunities, whereas others may be progression of disease, risk factors for PE, or unrelated.Copyright © 2024 American College of Emergency Physicians. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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