In-hospital mortality in the emergency department: clinical and etiological differences between early and late deaths among patients awaiting admission

OBJECTIVE: Given that there are no studies on diseases that occur by waiting for hospitalization, we aimed to evaluate the main causes of death in the emergency room (ER) and their relationship with overcrowding. METHODS: Patients who died in the ER in the past 2 years (pediatrics and trauma victims excluded) were divided into two groups: patients who died within 6 hours of arrival (emergency department [ED] group) and patients who died later (LD group). We compared the causes of death, total vital signs, diagnostic tests performed, and therapy between the groups. We assessed for possible correlation between the number of monthly deaths per group and four variables of overcrowding: number of patients treated per month, waiting time before medical visit (W-Time), mean intervention time (I-Time), and number of patients admitted to the ward per month (NPA). RESULTS: During the two years, 175 patients had died in our ER (52% in ED group and 48% in LD group). The total time spent in the ER was, respectively, 2.9±0.2 hours for ED group and 17.9± 1.5 hours for LD group. The more frequent cause of death was cardiovascular syndrome (30%) in ED group and sepsis (27%) and acute respiratory failure (27%) in LD group. Positive correlations between number of monthly deaths and W-Time (R(2) 0.51, P<0.001), I-Time (R(2) 0.73, P< 0.0001), and NPA (R(2) 0.37, P<0.01) were found only in LD group. CONCLUSION: Patients with sepsis and acute respiratory failure die after a long stay in the ER, and the risk increases with overcrowding. A fast-track pathway should be considered for hospital admission of critical patients.