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Treatment of ambulant patients by a general practitioner within a university hospital’s emergency department – follow-up study of patients’ behaviour shortly afterwards

Aims: Hospital emergency departments (ED) face an increasing number of outpatient cases. Therefore, Hannover Medical School employs general practitioners for the treatment of walk-in patients within the ED. Up to now, little has been reported on how these patients behave after treatment in the ED. T...

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Autores principales: Krause, Olaf, Schleef, Tanja, Raker, Maria, Schneider, Nils, Bleidorn, Jutta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6044226/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30022895
http://dx.doi.org/10.3205/000264
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author Krause, Olaf
Schleef, Tanja
Raker, Maria
Schneider, Nils
Bleidorn, Jutta
author_facet Krause, Olaf
Schleef, Tanja
Raker, Maria
Schneider, Nils
Bleidorn, Jutta
author_sort Krause, Olaf
collection PubMed
description Aims: Hospital emergency departments (ED) face an increasing number of outpatient cases. Therefore, Hannover Medical School employs general practitioners for the treatment of walk-in patients within the ED. Up to now, little has been reported on how these patients behave after treatment in the ED. This study aims to assess these patients’ behaviour after attending the ED, to find out how many patients consult a physician subsequently, and to explore patients’ utilisation of health care in case of similar health problems. Methods: For this follow-up study, patients treated at Hannover Medical School’s ED during daytime (Monday – Friday) by a general practitioner (GP) within a period of six weeks in 2016 were subsequently followed up by phone interviews 10–15 days after their consultation. Main topics in the semi-structured interview guide were patients’ behaviour after leaving the ED, subsequent contacts with medical care, and how patients would behave in the future given similar symptoms. Data were transferred to a SPSS database, and descriptive data analyses were performed. Results: In total, 171 patients were screened for inclusion, and 91 participated in the study. About half (n=48; 53%) of them were male, and the mean age was 46.6 years. After visiting the GP in the ED, 62 patients (68%) went directly home. Another 14 (15%) took up regular activities (e.g. work, university), while eight patients visited their usual GP practice. Within 10–15 days, 52 patients (57%) had had an appointment with a physician. In most cases this was a GP (n=34; 37%); 12 patients visited a specialist and six patients visited both a GP and a specialist. Physician appointments took place within an average of 3.4 days after treatment in the ED. In case of similar complaints, 37 patients (41%) would visit the ED again rather than visiting the GP, whereas 36% would consult the GP first, and 11% would visit a specialist first. Conclusion: A noteworthy number of patients considered visiting the ED again with similar symptoms instead of visiting a GP in ambulatory care. Consequently our findings suggest that the ED itself plays a minor role in navigating patients’ utilisation of medical treatment.
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spelling pubmed-60442262018-07-18 Treatment of ambulant patients by a general practitioner within a university hospital’s emergency department – follow-up study of patients’ behaviour shortly afterwards Krause, Olaf Schleef, Tanja Raker, Maria Schneider, Nils Bleidorn, Jutta Ger Med Sci Article Aims: Hospital emergency departments (ED) face an increasing number of outpatient cases. Therefore, Hannover Medical School employs general practitioners for the treatment of walk-in patients within the ED. Up to now, little has been reported on how these patients behave after treatment in the ED. This study aims to assess these patients’ behaviour after attending the ED, to find out how many patients consult a physician subsequently, and to explore patients’ utilisation of health care in case of similar health problems. Methods: For this follow-up study, patients treated at Hannover Medical School’s ED during daytime (Monday – Friday) by a general practitioner (GP) within a period of six weeks in 2016 were subsequently followed up by phone interviews 10–15 days after their consultation. Main topics in the semi-structured interview guide were patients’ behaviour after leaving the ED, subsequent contacts with medical care, and how patients would behave in the future given similar symptoms. Data were transferred to a SPSS database, and descriptive data analyses were performed. Results: In total, 171 patients were screened for inclusion, and 91 participated in the study. About half (n=48; 53%) of them were male, and the mean age was 46.6 years. After visiting the GP in the ED, 62 patients (68%) went directly home. Another 14 (15%) took up regular activities (e.g. work, university), while eight patients visited their usual GP practice. Within 10–15 days, 52 patients (57%) had had an appointment with a physician. In most cases this was a GP (n=34; 37%); 12 patients visited a specialist and six patients visited both a GP and a specialist. Physician appointments took place within an average of 3.4 days after treatment in the ED. In case of similar complaints, 37 patients (41%) would visit the ED again rather than visiting the GP, whereas 36% would consult the GP first, and 11% would visit a specialist first. Conclusion: A noteworthy number of patients considered visiting the ED again with similar symptoms instead of visiting a GP in ambulatory care. Consequently our findings suggest that the ED itself plays a minor role in navigating patients’ utilisation of medical treatment. German Medical Science GMS Publishing House 2018-07-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6044226/ /pubmed/30022895 http://dx.doi.org/10.3205/000264 Text en Copyright © 2018 Krause et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Krause, Olaf
Schleef, Tanja
Raker, Maria
Schneider, Nils
Bleidorn, Jutta
Treatment of ambulant patients by a general practitioner within a university hospital’s emergency department – follow-up study of patients’ behaviour shortly afterwards
title Treatment of ambulant patients by a general practitioner within a university hospital’s emergency department – follow-up study of patients’ behaviour shortly afterwards
title_full Treatment of ambulant patients by a general practitioner within a university hospital’s emergency department – follow-up study of patients’ behaviour shortly afterwards
title_fullStr Treatment of ambulant patients by a general practitioner within a university hospital’s emergency department – follow-up study of patients’ behaviour shortly afterwards
title_full_unstemmed Treatment of ambulant patients by a general practitioner within a university hospital’s emergency department – follow-up study of patients’ behaviour shortly afterwards
title_short Treatment of ambulant patients by a general practitioner within a university hospital’s emergency department – follow-up study of patients’ behaviour shortly afterwards
title_sort treatment of ambulant patients by a general practitioner within a university hospital’s emergency department – follow-up study of patients’ behaviour shortly afterwards
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6044226/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30022895
http://dx.doi.org/10.3205/000264
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