title: Evaluation of non-urgent visits to a busy urban emergency department.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify the proportion of patients who were taken into the emergency room on the basis of legal regulations and non-urgent medical procedures.
  
  
  METHODS
  This prospective study was conducted in the Emergency Department, Toros State Hospital, Mersin, Turkey. Data were collected over 4 weeks (January 2011) and then analyzed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Analysis of Variance, and Kruskal-Wallis H tests.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During the study period, 21,014 patients visited the Emergency Department. The applications were measured during a 3-shift schedule (08-16, 16-00, 00-08 hours). The total number of ordinary emergency admissions was 16,370. Of the total, 4,644   (22.1%) of the visits were evaluated as inappropriate. According to our study, inappropriate use of the emergency department was 51.1% more frequent during the 08-16 hours shift than the others.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Inappropriate use of EDs with non-urgent applications makes it difficult to guarantee access for real emergency cases, decreases the readiness for care, and produces negative spillover effects on the quality of emergency services.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency, Marmara University Pendik Research and Training Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey. drseroglu@gmail.com
authors.forename: Serkan E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Eroglu
authors.forename: Siddika N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Toprak
authors.forename: Oguz
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Urgan
authors.forename: Ozge E
authors.initials: OE
authors.lastname: Onur
authors.forename: Arzu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Denizbasi
authors.forename: Haldun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Akoglu
authors.forename: Cigdem
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ozpolat
authors.forename: Ebru
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Akoglu
mesh_terms: D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D014421:Turkey; D019037:Urban Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*