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Increased Urgent Care Center Visits by Southeast European Migrants: A Retrospective, Controlled Trial from Switzerland

We investigated whether immigrants from Southeast Europe (SE) and Swiss patients have different reasons for visiting the emergency department (ED). Our retrospective data analysis for the years 2013–2017 describes the pattern of ED consultations for immigrants from SE living in Switzerland (Canton B...

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Autores principales: Klukowska-Röetzler, Jolanta, Eracleous, Maria, Müller, Martin, Srivastava, David S., Krummrey, Gert, Keidar, Osnat, Exadaktylos, Aristomenis K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6164677/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30154317
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15091857
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author Klukowska-Röetzler, Jolanta
Eracleous, Maria
Müller, Martin
Srivastava, David S.
Krummrey, Gert
Keidar, Osnat
Exadaktylos, Aristomenis K.
author_facet Klukowska-Röetzler, Jolanta
Eracleous, Maria
Müller, Martin
Srivastava, David S.
Krummrey, Gert
Keidar, Osnat
Exadaktylos, Aristomenis K.
author_sort Klukowska-Röetzler, Jolanta
collection PubMed
description We investigated whether immigrants from Southeast Europe (SE) and Swiss patients have different reasons for visiting the emergency department (ED). Our retrospective data analysis for the years 2013–2017 describes the pattern of ED consultations for immigrants from SE living in Switzerland (Canton Bern), in comparison with Swiss nationals, with a focus on type of referral and reason for admission. A total of 153,320 Swiss citizens and 12,852 immigrants from SE were included in the study. The mean age was 51.30 (SD = 21.13) years for the Swiss patients and 39.70 (SD = 15.87) years for the SE patients. For some countries of origin (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey), there were highly statistically significant differences in sex distribution, with a predominance of males. SE immigrants had a greater proportion of patients in the lower triage level (level 3: SE: 67.3% vs. Swiss: 56.0%) and a greater proportion of patients in the high triage level than the Swiss population (level 1: SE: 3.4% vs. Swiss: 8.8%). SE patients of working age (16–65 years) were six times more often admitted by ambulance than older (≥65 years) SE patients, whereas this ratio was similar in the Swiss population. In both groups, the fast track service was primarily used for patients of working age (<65) and more than three times more often in the SE than the Swiss group (SE: 39.1%, Swiss: 12.6%). We identified some indications for access to primary care in emergency departments for immigrants and highlighted the need for attention to the role of organizational characteristics of primary health care in Switzerland. We highlighted the need for professional support to improve the quality of healthcare for immigrants. In the future, we will need more primary care services and general practitioners with a migrant background.
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spelling pubmed-61646772018-10-12 Increased Urgent Care Center Visits by Southeast European Migrants: A Retrospective, Controlled Trial from Switzerland Klukowska-Röetzler, Jolanta Eracleous, Maria Müller, Martin Srivastava, David S. Krummrey, Gert Keidar, Osnat Exadaktylos, Aristomenis K. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article We investigated whether immigrants from Southeast Europe (SE) and Swiss patients have different reasons for visiting the emergency department (ED). Our retrospective data analysis for the years 2013–2017 describes the pattern of ED consultations for immigrants from SE living in Switzerland (Canton Bern), in comparison with Swiss nationals, with a focus on type of referral and reason for admission. A total of 153,320 Swiss citizens and 12,852 immigrants from SE were included in the study. The mean age was 51.30 (SD = 21.13) years for the Swiss patients and 39.70 (SD = 15.87) years for the SE patients. For some countries of origin (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey), there were highly statistically significant differences in sex distribution, with a predominance of males. SE immigrants had a greater proportion of patients in the lower triage level (level 3: SE: 67.3% vs. Swiss: 56.0%) and a greater proportion of patients in the high triage level than the Swiss population (level 1: SE: 3.4% vs. Swiss: 8.8%). SE patients of working age (16–65 years) were six times more often admitted by ambulance than older (≥65 years) SE patients, whereas this ratio was similar in the Swiss population. In both groups, the fast track service was primarily used for patients of working age (<65) and more than three times more often in the SE than the Swiss group (SE: 39.1%, Swiss: 12.6%). We identified some indications for access to primary care in emergency departments for immigrants and highlighted the need for attention to the role of organizational characteristics of primary health care in Switzerland. We highlighted the need for professional support to improve the quality of healthcare for immigrants. In the future, we will need more primary care services and general practitioners with a migrant background. MDPI 2018-08-28 2018-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6164677/ /pubmed/30154317 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15091857 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Klukowska-Röetzler, Jolanta
Eracleous, Maria
Müller, Martin
Srivastava, David S.
Krummrey, Gert
Keidar, Osnat
Exadaktylos, Aristomenis K.
Increased Urgent Care Center Visits by Southeast European Migrants: A Retrospective, Controlled Trial from Switzerland
title Increased Urgent Care Center Visits by Southeast European Migrants: A Retrospective, Controlled Trial from Switzerland
title_full Increased Urgent Care Center Visits by Southeast European Migrants: A Retrospective, Controlled Trial from Switzerland
title_fullStr Increased Urgent Care Center Visits by Southeast European Migrants: A Retrospective, Controlled Trial from Switzerland
title_full_unstemmed Increased Urgent Care Center Visits by Southeast European Migrants: A Retrospective, Controlled Trial from Switzerland
title_short Increased Urgent Care Center Visits by Southeast European Migrants: A Retrospective, Controlled Trial from Switzerland
title_sort increased urgent care center visits by southeast european migrants: a retrospective, controlled trial from switzerland
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6164677/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30154317
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15091857
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