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The burden of flashes and floaters in traditional general emergency services and utilization of ophthalmology on-call consultation: a cross-sectional study

PURPOSE: To characterize the healthcare utilization and clinical characteristics of patients presenting with flashes and/or floaters (F/F) in general emergency service (GES) settings. METHODS: All adults presenting to GESs (emergency departments (EDs) and urgent care centers (UCCs)) with symptoms of...

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Autores principales: Shen, Carl, Liu, Alicia, Farrokhyar, Forough, Fava, Mark
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9530426/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36195837
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12886-022-02613-6
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author Shen, Carl
Liu, Alicia
Farrokhyar, Forough
Fava, Mark
author_facet Shen, Carl
Liu, Alicia
Farrokhyar, Forough
Fava, Mark
author_sort Shen, Carl
collection PubMed
description PURPOSE: To characterize the healthcare utilization and clinical characteristics of patients presenting with flashes and/or floaters (F/F) in general emergency service (GES) settings. METHODS: All adults presenting to GESs (emergency departments (EDs) and urgent care centers (UCCs)) with symptoms of F/F in Hamilton, Ontario between Jan. 1 – Dec. 31, 2018 were reviewed. Primary outcome was the proportion of patients presenting to GESs with F/F for which ophthalmology emergency services (OESs) were consulted. Secondary outcomes included features predictive of OES consultation by logistic regression and cost of GES utilization. RESULTS: Of 6590 primary eye-related visits to GESs, 10.4% (687) involved symptoms of F/F. Mean age of patients with F/F was 57 ± 15 years, and 61% were female. Consultation rate to OESs for F/F presentations was 89% (608/687). Logistic regression identified symptoms ≤ 2 weeks (OR 8.0; 95% CI 2.3–28), ≥ 45 years age (OR 2.4; 95% CI 1.4–4.3), UCC setting (OR 2.7; 95% CI 1.6–4.6), headache (OR 0.22; 95% CI 0.12–0.41), and neurologic symptoms (OR 0.1; 95% CI 0.19–0.49) as variables predictive of OES consultation. Mean time from triage to discharge in GESs for F/F patients was 2.43 ± 2.36 h. Mean cost per visit was $139.11 ± $113.93 Canadian dollars. Patients for which OES were consulted waited a total of 1345 h in GESs and accounted for $81,879.70 in costs. CONCLUSION: Patients presenting with F/F in GESs consume considerable resources in healthcare expenditure and time spent in GESs and most receive OES consultation. Identifying these patients at triage may allow for increased efficiency for the healthcare system and patients. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12886-022-02613-6.
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spelling pubmed-95304262022-10-04 The burden of flashes and floaters in traditional general emergency services and utilization of ophthalmology on-call consultation: a cross-sectional study Shen, Carl Liu, Alicia Farrokhyar, Forough Fava, Mark BMC Ophthalmol Research PURPOSE: To characterize the healthcare utilization and clinical characteristics of patients presenting with flashes and/or floaters (F/F) in general emergency service (GES) settings. METHODS: All adults presenting to GESs (emergency departments (EDs) and urgent care centers (UCCs)) with symptoms of F/F in Hamilton, Ontario between Jan. 1 – Dec. 31, 2018 were reviewed. Primary outcome was the proportion of patients presenting to GESs with F/F for which ophthalmology emergency services (OESs) were consulted. Secondary outcomes included features predictive of OES consultation by logistic regression and cost of GES utilization. RESULTS: Of 6590 primary eye-related visits to GESs, 10.4% (687) involved symptoms of F/F. Mean age of patients with F/F was 57 ± 15 years, and 61% were female. Consultation rate to OESs for F/F presentations was 89% (608/687). Logistic regression identified symptoms ≤ 2 weeks (OR 8.0; 95% CI 2.3–28), ≥ 45 years age (OR 2.4; 95% CI 1.4–4.3), UCC setting (OR 2.7; 95% CI 1.6–4.6), headache (OR 0.22; 95% CI 0.12–0.41), and neurologic symptoms (OR 0.1; 95% CI 0.19–0.49) as variables predictive of OES consultation. Mean time from triage to discharge in GESs for F/F patients was 2.43 ± 2.36 h. Mean cost per visit was $139.11 ± $113.93 Canadian dollars. Patients for which OES were consulted waited a total of 1345 h in GESs and accounted for $81,879.70 in costs. CONCLUSION: Patients presenting with F/F in GESs consume considerable resources in healthcare expenditure and time spent in GESs and most receive OES consultation. Identifying these patients at triage may allow for increased efficiency for the healthcare system and patients. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12886-022-02613-6. BioMed Central 2022-10-04 /pmc/articles/PMC9530426/ /pubmed/36195837 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12886-022-02613-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Shen, Carl
Liu, Alicia
Farrokhyar, Forough
Fava, Mark
The burden of flashes and floaters in traditional general emergency services and utilization of ophthalmology on-call consultation: a cross-sectional study
title The burden of flashes and floaters in traditional general emergency services and utilization of ophthalmology on-call consultation: a cross-sectional study
title_full The burden of flashes and floaters in traditional general emergency services and utilization of ophthalmology on-call consultation: a cross-sectional study
title_fullStr The burden of flashes and floaters in traditional general emergency services and utilization of ophthalmology on-call consultation: a cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed The burden of flashes and floaters in traditional general emergency services and utilization of ophthalmology on-call consultation: a cross-sectional study
title_short The burden of flashes and floaters in traditional general emergency services and utilization of ophthalmology on-call consultation: a cross-sectional study
title_sort burden of flashes and floaters in traditional general emergency services and utilization of ophthalmology on-call consultation: a cross-sectional study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9530426/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36195837
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12886-022-02613-6
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