Evaluation of using pediatric emergency rooms

OBJECTIVE: The overload of pediatric emergency units around the world has become an increasing problem for patients and health care professionals alike. Researching the features of pediatric emergency services will provide the necessary information for creating an effective emergency medical system, increasing patient satisfaction, and reducing the treatment costs. In this study; we aimed to check the admissions in pediatric emergency rooms, evaluate the effectiveness of emergency service, and develop suitable strategies to increase the amount and quality of medical service given in pediatric emergency rooms. METHODS: In this retrospective study, the records of 296,858 (51.2% female, 48.8% male) patient admissions in the emergency rooms and 384,171 (46.3% female, 53.7% male) admissions in the outpatient clinics of eight hospitals between January 2015 and June 2015 were scanned. Out of these hospitals, two facilities were research and training hospitals. RESULTS: The average age of patients who were admitted to the emergency room was 89.1 (±21.3) months and the average age of patients admitted to the outpatient clinics was 87.2 (±18.7) months. Upper respiratory tract infection was the most frequent (44.23%) diagnosis in the emergency rooms and most of these infected patients (63.67%) had been admitted to the two training and research hospitals that provide an advanced level of health care. Also, the patient requests for diagnosis were determined to be significantly high in emergency rooms. CONCLUSION: Proper understanding of the scope of emergency services is very important in order to provide fast and effective healthcare to the patients who get admitted to emergency rooms and maintain appropriate and judicious use of the resources of emergency rooms.