Emergency Utilization and Trends in a Community Dental Clinic in Northern Manhattan: A Retrospective Study

Purpose: To evaluate utilization and trends associated with patients who presented with emergencies at a community dental clinic at Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY. Study design: Data from deidentified dental records of patients aged 0-12 years old who presented as emergencies for oral and dental reasons for 2012, 2013, and 2014 were collected. Variables analyzed included demographic information, oral diagnosis, and current health status. Frequency distributions analysis, chi-square test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) test were performed using Stata 13.0. Results: There were 4,328 dental and oral-related emergencies with a mean age of 6-years-old. Approximately 50% were females, 71% were Hispanic, and 90% had Medicaid managed care. Most emergencies (49%) were caries-related, 41% were considered atraumatic in nature, and approximately 10% were traumatic. About 10% of patients presented with comorbidities and 37% were either first-time patients or patients that presented exclusively for emergencies. Acute tooth pain (45%) caused by dental caries was the most common chief complaint. The trends for emergency presentations showed a significant decrease (p<.001) between years 2012-2014 for caries-related visits and a significant increase (p<.001) between 2012-2013 and 2012-2014 for atraumatic visits. Conclusions: Caries-related dental diagnoses were more common than trauma-related diagnoses. The most common caries-related diagnosis was pulp necrosis for both primary and permanent dentitions while the most common traumarelated diagnosis was subluxation for the primary dentition and enamel-dentin fracture for the permanent dentition.