[Assessment of a modified Hospital Emergency Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol].
OBJECTIVE
Hospital Emergency inappropriate attendances need to be evaluated, including emergencies that can be solved in primary care. The study aim was to validate a Hospital Emergency Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol (HEAEP) having into account patient health care setting.


METHODS
An HEAEP with explicit criteria was developed. We randomly chose 100 emergency medical records among all patients attended at the Granada Hospital Ruiz de Alda in the first quarter of 2000. Records were evaluated by six emergency specialists to compare results provided by the HEAEP.


RESULTS
The HEAEP identified as appropriate all attendances so classified by experts. As inappropriate, HEAEP only pointed out 69% of the emergency visits considered as inappropriate by experts.


CONCLUSIONS
The modified HEAEP shown a good internal validity and high reproducibility. The main advantage is to point out as inappropriate emergency attendances that can be solved in primary care.
Sánchez-López
Juan
J
Servicio de Cuidados Críticos y Urgencias. Hospital Universitario Ruiz de Alda. Servicio Andaluz de Salud. Granada. Spain.
Luna del Castillo
Juan de Dios
Jde D
Jiménez-Moleón
José Juan
JJ
Delgado-Martín
Antonio Eduardo
AE
López de la Iglesia
Begoña
B
Bueno-Cavanillas
Aurora
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006300:Health Services Misuse / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D014600:Utilization Review / Q000379:methods*