title: [Hospital emergency rooms].
abstract: Overuse of hospital emergency rooms (HERs) is parallel to their controversy. To understand this problem, some concepts should be first clarified. In HERs, there are some intrinsic aspects which are directly related to the emergency itself and thus cannot be modified (intermittent patient flow, need to prioritize, difficulty to achieve a rapid diagnosis, influence of time on treatment, value of clinical follow up, patient's expectations, impact of HER on the overall hospital working dynamics). On the other hand, there are some extrinsic aspects which indeed are not related to HER itself but are rather historically associated with it (precarious structure, delay on admission, lack of privacy, inadequate triage of cases, lack of professionalization); these latter aspects may be potentially modified and should be reconsidered.
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Urgencias. Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol. Badalona. Barcelona. España.
authors.forename: Pere
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tudela
authors.forename: Josep Maria
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Mòdol
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D010348:Patient Care Team; D011361:Professional Competence; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D013030:Spain; D013997:Time Factors