Effectiveness of hospital emergency department regionalization and categorization policy on appropriate patient emergency care use: a nationwide observational study in Taiwan

BACKGROUND: Emergency department (ED) overcrowding is a health services issue worldwide. Modern health policy emphasizes appropriate health services utilization. However, the relationship between accessibility, capability, and appropriateness of ED use is unknown. Thus, this study aimed to examine the effect of hospital ED regionalization policy and categorization of hospital emergency capability policy (categorization policy) on patient-appropriate ED use. METHODS: Taiwan implemented a nationwide three-tiered hospital ED regionalization and categorization of hospital emergency capability policies in 2007 and 2009, respectively. We conducted a retrospective observational study on the effect of emergency care policy intervention on patient visit. Between 2005 and 2011, the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database recorded 1,835,860 ED visits from 1 million random samples. ED visits were categorized using the Yang-Ming modified New York University-ED algorithm. A time series analysis was performed to examine the change in appropriate ED use rate after policy implementation. RESULTS: From 2005 to 2011, total ED visits increased by 10.7%. After policy implementation, the average appropriate ED visit rate was 66.9%. The intervention had no significant effect on the trend of appropriate ED visit rate. CONCLUSIONS: Although regionalization and categorization policies did increase emergency care accessibility, it had no significant effect on patient-appropriate ED use. Further research is required to improve data-driven policymaking. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-020-06006-7.