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Out of hours care: a profile analysis of patients attending the emergency department and the general practitioner on call
BACKGROUND: Overuse of emergency departments (ED) is of concern in Western society and it is often referred to as 'inappropriate' use. This phenomenon may compromise efficient use of health care personnel, infrastructure and financial resources of the ED. To redirect patients, an extensive...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2010
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2998456/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21078162 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-11-88 |
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author | Philips, Hilde Remmen, Roy De Paepe, Peter Buylaert, Walter Van Royen, Paul |
author_facet | Philips, Hilde Remmen, Roy De Paepe, Peter Buylaert, Walter Van Royen, Paul |
author_sort | Philips, Hilde |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Overuse of emergency departments (ED) is of concern in Western society and it is often referred to as 'inappropriate' use. This phenomenon may compromise efficient use of health care personnel, infrastructure and financial resources of the ED. To redirect patients, an extensive knowledge of the experiences and attitudes of patients and their choice behaviour is necessary. The aim of this study is to quantify the patients and socio-economical determinants for choosing the general practitioner (GP) on call or the ED. METHODS: Data collection was conducted simultaneously in 4 large cities in Belgium. All patients who visited EDs or used the services of the GP on call during two weekends in January 2005 were enrolled in the study in a prospective manner. We used semi-structured questionnaires to interview patients from both services. RESULTS: 1611 patient contacts were suitable for further analysis. 640 patients visited the GP and 971 went to the ED. Determinants that associated with the choice of the ED are: being male, having visited the ED during the past 12 months at least once, speaking another language than Dutch or French, being of African (sub-Saharan as well as North African) nationality and no medical insurance. We also found that young men are more likely to seek help at the ED for minor trauma, compared to women. CONCLUSIONS: Patients tend to seek help at the service they are acquainted with. Two populations that distinctively seek help at the ED for minor medical problems are people of foreign origin and men suffering minor trauma. Aiming at a redirection of patients, special attention should go to these patients. Informing them about the health services' specific tasks and the needlessness of technical examinations for minor trauma, might be a useful intervention. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-2998456 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2010 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-29984562010-12-08 Out of hours care: a profile analysis of patients attending the emergency department and the general practitioner on call Philips, Hilde Remmen, Roy De Paepe, Peter Buylaert, Walter Van Royen, Paul BMC Fam Pract Research Article BACKGROUND: Overuse of emergency departments (ED) is of concern in Western society and it is often referred to as 'inappropriate' use. This phenomenon may compromise efficient use of health care personnel, infrastructure and financial resources of the ED. To redirect patients, an extensive knowledge of the experiences and attitudes of patients and their choice behaviour is necessary. The aim of this study is to quantify the patients and socio-economical determinants for choosing the general practitioner (GP) on call or the ED. METHODS: Data collection was conducted simultaneously in 4 large cities in Belgium. All patients who visited EDs or used the services of the GP on call during two weekends in January 2005 were enrolled in the study in a prospective manner. We used semi-structured questionnaires to interview patients from both services. RESULTS: 1611 patient contacts were suitable for further analysis. 640 patients visited the GP and 971 went to the ED. Determinants that associated with the choice of the ED are: being male, having visited the ED during the past 12 months at least once, speaking another language than Dutch or French, being of African (sub-Saharan as well as North African) nationality and no medical insurance. We also found that young men are more likely to seek help at the ED for minor trauma, compared to women. CONCLUSIONS: Patients tend to seek help at the service they are acquainted with. Two populations that distinctively seek help at the ED for minor medical problems are people of foreign origin and men suffering minor trauma. Aiming at a redirection of patients, special attention should go to these patients. Informing them about the health services' specific tasks and the needlessness of technical examinations for minor trauma, might be a useful intervention. BioMed Central 2010-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC2998456/ /pubmed/21078162 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-11-88 Text en Copyright ©2010 Philips et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (<url>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0</url>), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Philips, Hilde Remmen, Roy De Paepe, Peter Buylaert, Walter Van Royen, Paul Out of hours care: a profile analysis of patients attending the emergency department and the general practitioner on call |
title | Out of hours care: a profile analysis of patients attending the emergency department and the general practitioner on call |
title_full | Out of hours care: a profile analysis of patients attending the emergency department and the general practitioner on call |
title_fullStr | Out of hours care: a profile analysis of patients attending the emergency department and the general practitioner on call |
title_full_unstemmed | Out of hours care: a profile analysis of patients attending the emergency department and the general practitioner on call |
title_short | Out of hours care: a profile analysis of patients attending the emergency department and the general practitioner on call |
title_sort | out of hours care: a profile analysis of patients attending the emergency department and the general practitioner on call |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2998456/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21078162 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-11-88 |
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