Abstract
Surgical databases are useful for examining outcomes and case volume to improve care, while public interest data has the potentialto track the supply and demand of medical services in specific communities.However, the relationship between public interest data and case volume from surgical databases, specifically during disruptive instances like the coronavirus pandemic, is unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determinehow public interest data is related to the case volumeof coronavirus and othersurgical procedures performed during the coronavirus pandemic. This retrospective study included a review of appendectomy, total hip arthroplasty (THA), and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) cases from the National Surgery Quality Improvement Project and relative search volume (RSV) of hip replacement, knee replacement,appendicitis, andcoronavirus from Google Trends from 2019 to 2020. T-tests were used to compare surgical caseload and RSV data before and after the COVID-19 surge in March 2020, while linear models were used to determine relationships between confirmed procedures and relative search volumes. The RSV for knee replacement(p < 0.001, Cohen's D [d] = -5.01, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -7.64 to -2.34) and hip replacement (p < 0.001, d = -7.22, 95% CI: -10.85 to -3.57) had a large dip during the coronavirus pandemic, while the RSV for appendicitishad a smaller dip (p = 0.003, d = -2.37, 95% CI: -3.93 to -0.74). Linear models showed very strong linear relationships between surgical RSV and surgical volume for TKA (R2= 0.931) and THA (R2= 0.940). There was a significant reductionin the number of elective surgeries, which correlated to drops in public interest during COVID-19.The strong correlations between RSV, surgical volume, and coronavirus cases indicatethat public interest can be used to track and predict surgical case volume.Our findings allow for greater insight into the use of public interest data to gauge surgical demand.
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