[Many patients treated in the emergency department could be treated by a general practitioner on call].
Misuse of accident and emergency (A&E) departments is a problem throughout the world. Staffing A&E departments with general practitioners has been reported as successful in a few prospective studies. A medical audit of all A&E charts during one week was carried out. The audit-panel included two orthopaedic surgeons and two general practitioners. The charts were divided in two groups: 1) true A&E cases, 2) inappropriate A&E users, who should have visited the general practitioners' acute consultation instead. There was substantial agreement between audit-panel groups that 57% of attenders could visit the general practitioner instead. Ten percent of attenders received no treatment in the A&E department, but were transferred to other departments within the hospital. It is concluded that two-thirds of the A&E department attenders could have visited the general practitioners instead, for treatment or for referral to the relevant hospital department.
Laursen
M B
MB
Aalborg Sygehus, ortopaedkirurgisk afdeling. mons@aas.nja.dk
Jensen
H P
HP
D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005194:Family Practice; D006300:Health Services Misuse; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit; D010561:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling; D010821:Physicians, Family; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D000078329:Workforce