Use of emergency departments by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
OBJECTIVE
To review published Australian literature about ED care of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.


METHODS
Six databases were searched electronically for articles about ED use by Indigenous people in Australia. This strategy was complemented by manual searches of two websites, Emergency Medicine (1994-2004) and three bibliographies.


RESULTS
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples attend EDs about twice as often as other Australians. The waiting times of Indigenous patients are similar to, or slightly shorter than, those of non-Indigenous patients. However, more Indigenous than other patients choose to walk out before being seen, indicating possibly greater Indigenous dissatisfaction with ED care.


CONCLUSIONS
Further conclusions of the present literature review were limited by contradictory results in the few studies of reasonable quality and by general concerns about data quality, especially the poor (but slowly improving) identification of Indigenous people in routine ED data sets. Closer collaboration between ED staff and Indigenous hospital liaison staff, combined with regular monitoring of routinely-collected ED data, have the potential to improve Indigenous ED care and so contribute to improvements in Indigenous health.
Thomas
David P
DP
Centre for Health and Society & Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. dpthomas@unimelb.edu.au
Anderson
Ian P S
IP
D001315:Australia; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000208:ethnology; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014218:Triage / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000095283:Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples