Ophthalmology consult volume at a tertiary care center emergency room: an emerging trend

Background: Changes to the practice of ophthalmology have affected how health systems manage urgent and emergent ophthalmic complaints. However, the literature analyzing recent trends is limited. Purpose: To analyze trends in the volume of ophthalmology consults and eye-related emergency room visits at a large academic medical center. Methods: This is a single-institution retrospective observational study of adult emergency room patient encounters and subsequent adult emergency room ophthalmology consults from July 2019 through June 2024. Encounters were categorized as primary eye complaints and nonprimary eye complaints. Ophthalmology consults and emergency room encounters were tracked based on the presentation to the emergency room and time of consult placement. The volume of consults over time, and the ratios of consults and primary eye complaints to emergency room encounters were measured over time. Primary outcome measures included the number of ophthalmology consults, emergency room encounters, and emergency room primary eye complaint encounters. Secondary outcome measures included the ratio of primary eye complaints to total emergency room encounters and the ratio of ophthalmology consults to the number of primary eye complaint encounters. Results: There were 365,531 adult emergency room encounters including 9,276 ophthalmology consults with 9,071 primary eye complaints between 2019 and 2024. The mean annual growth rate for ophthalmology consults was 15.5%, 10.0% for emergency room primary eye complaints, and 3.3% for total emergency room encounters over the time period assessed. There was significant growth in the ratios of consults to eye complaints and eye complaints to total emergency room encounters. Conclusions: At our institution, emergency room ophthalmology needs increased significantly over the 5-year period studied.