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An after hours gp clinic in regional Australia: appropriateness of presentations and impact on local emergency department presentations

BACKGROUND: After hours general practice clinics provide medical attention for clients with non-emergency situations but are seeking immediate treatment and unable to wait for a general practitioner during routine opening hours. Evidence on the impact that after hours clinics have on emergency depar...

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Autores principales: Payne, Kristy, Dutton, Tegan, Weal, Kate, Earle, Maree, Wilson, Ross, Bailey, Jannine
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5594615/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28893200
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-017-0657-6
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author Payne, Kristy
Dutton, Tegan
Weal, Kate
Earle, Maree
Wilson, Ross
Bailey, Jannine
author_facet Payne, Kristy
Dutton, Tegan
Weal, Kate
Earle, Maree
Wilson, Ross
Bailey, Jannine
author_sort Payne, Kristy
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: After hours general practice clinics provide medical attention for clients with non-emergency situations but are seeking immediate treatment and unable to wait for a general practitioner during routine opening hours. Evidence on the impact that after hours clinics have on emergency department presentations is equivocal. This study explored outcomes of the Bathurst After Hours General Practice Clinic (BAHGPC). Specifically it examined: clients’ perceived urgency of, and satisfaction with their presentation to the BAHGPC; general practitioners’ perception of the appropriateness of presentations to the BAHGPC; and whether the frequency of non-urgent and semi-urgent emergency department presentations at Bathurst Base Hospital has changed since the opening of the BAHGPC. METHODS: Clients presenting to the BAHGPC from 01/02/2015 to 30/06/2015 were asked to participate in the client presentation survey and follow-up satisfaction survey. General practitioner surveys were completed for individual clients from 01/12/2014 to 30/06/2015 to document the appropriateness of each presentation. Descriptive statistics are used to describe survey responses. Thematic analysis was applied for qualitative responses. Emergency department presentations were retrieved from the Emergency Department Data Collection. A comparison of presentations in the two years prior and subsequent to the opening of the BAHGPC was conducted using independent T-tests and Chi-square tests to compare mean presentations and proportional data for the different time periods examined. RESULTS: Most clients (76%) presenting to the BAHGPC classified their visit as essential. General practitioners considered most presentations to be appropriate (87%). Sixty percent (60%) of clients would have gone to the emergency department had the BAHGPC not been operational. Client satisfaction was high and 99% would use the clinic again. A significant reduction in total non-urgent presentations to the Emergency Department occurred in the two years since the opening of the BAHGPC clinic compared to the two years prior (418.5 vs. 245.5; P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: There was concordance between general practitioners and clients regarding the appropriateness of presentations to the BAHGPC. The findings of this study highlight that after hours general practitioner clinics are an essential service in regional areas and contribute to reducing the burden of non-urgent presentations to the local emergency department. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12875-017-0657-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-55946152017-09-15 An after hours gp clinic in regional Australia: appropriateness of presentations and impact on local emergency department presentations Payne, Kristy Dutton, Tegan Weal, Kate Earle, Maree Wilson, Ross Bailey, Jannine BMC Fam Pract Research Article BACKGROUND: After hours general practice clinics provide medical attention for clients with non-emergency situations but are seeking immediate treatment and unable to wait for a general practitioner during routine opening hours. Evidence on the impact that after hours clinics have on emergency department presentations is equivocal. This study explored outcomes of the Bathurst After Hours General Practice Clinic (BAHGPC). Specifically it examined: clients’ perceived urgency of, and satisfaction with their presentation to the BAHGPC; general practitioners’ perception of the appropriateness of presentations to the BAHGPC; and whether the frequency of non-urgent and semi-urgent emergency department presentations at Bathurst Base Hospital has changed since the opening of the BAHGPC. METHODS: Clients presenting to the BAHGPC from 01/02/2015 to 30/06/2015 were asked to participate in the client presentation survey and follow-up satisfaction survey. General practitioner surveys were completed for individual clients from 01/12/2014 to 30/06/2015 to document the appropriateness of each presentation. Descriptive statistics are used to describe survey responses. Thematic analysis was applied for qualitative responses. Emergency department presentations were retrieved from the Emergency Department Data Collection. A comparison of presentations in the two years prior and subsequent to the opening of the BAHGPC was conducted using independent T-tests and Chi-square tests to compare mean presentations and proportional data for the different time periods examined. RESULTS: Most clients (76%) presenting to the BAHGPC classified their visit as essential. General practitioners considered most presentations to be appropriate (87%). Sixty percent (60%) of clients would have gone to the emergency department had the BAHGPC not been operational. Client satisfaction was high and 99% would use the clinic again. A significant reduction in total non-urgent presentations to the Emergency Department occurred in the two years since the opening of the BAHGPC clinic compared to the two years prior (418.5 vs. 245.5; P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: There was concordance between general practitioners and clients regarding the appropriateness of presentations to the BAHGPC. The findings of this study highlight that after hours general practitioner clinics are an essential service in regional areas and contribute to reducing the burden of non-urgent presentations to the local emergency department. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12875-017-0657-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-09-11 /pmc/articles/PMC5594615/ /pubmed/28893200 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-017-0657-6 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Payne, Kristy
Dutton, Tegan
Weal, Kate
Earle, Maree
Wilson, Ross
Bailey, Jannine
An after hours gp clinic in regional Australia: appropriateness of presentations and impact on local emergency department presentations
title An after hours gp clinic in regional Australia: appropriateness of presentations and impact on local emergency department presentations
title_full An after hours gp clinic in regional Australia: appropriateness of presentations and impact on local emergency department presentations
title_fullStr An after hours gp clinic in regional Australia: appropriateness of presentations and impact on local emergency department presentations
title_full_unstemmed An after hours gp clinic in regional Australia: appropriateness of presentations and impact on local emergency department presentations
title_short An after hours gp clinic in regional Australia: appropriateness of presentations and impact on local emergency department presentations
title_sort after hours gp clinic in regional australia: appropriateness of presentations and impact on local emergency department presentations
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5594615/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28893200
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-017-0657-6
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