Dataset Information

Inappropriate use of the emergency department for nonurgent conditions: Patient characteristics and associated factors at a Japanese hospital.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The purpose of this study was to investigate the primary factors associated with inappropriate out-of-hours emergency department (ED) use by patients with nonurgent conditions.

Methods

We compared patients with nonurgent conditions who made inappropriate, out-of-hours ED visits to patients who visited an acute care hospital during daytime consultation hours between May 30 and October 16, 2014, in terms of patient characteristics and reasons for consultation. Our goal was to identify factors associated with inappropriate ED use, defined as an out-of-hours, nonurgent, and unnecessary visits.

Results

We analyzed data from 84 patients who made inappropriate use of out-of-hours emergency care and 147 patients who sought care during regular consultation hours. In the inappropriate use group, "desire to be cured quickly" was the most common reason. Acute upper respiratory infection, acute gastroenteritis, and primary headache comprised 51.1% of diagnoses in the inappropriate use group. One factor associated with inappropriate use was two or more previous out-of-hours ED visits (odds ratio (OR) 3.19; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.22-8.31) (reference: 0 visits).

Conclusions

Patients with two or more previous out-of-hours ED visits were more than three times as likely to inappropriately use the ED compared to patients who had not visited the ED at all in the past 3 years.

SUBMITTER: Miyazawa A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6612776 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Inappropriate use of the emergency department for nonurgent conditions: Patient characteristics and associated factors at a Japanese hospital.

Miyazawa Asako A Maeno Takami T Shaku Fumio F Tsutsumi Madoka M Kurihara Hiroshi H Takayashiki Ayumi A Kohno Mototsugu M Suzuki Masatsune M Maeno Tetsuhiro T

Journal of general and family medicine 20190429 4

<h4>Background</h4>The purpose of this study was to investigate the primary factors associated with inappropriate out-of-hours emergency department (ED) use by patients with nonurgent conditions.<h4>Methods</h4>We compared patients with nonurgent conditions who made inappropriate, out-of-hours ED visits to patients who visited an acute care hospital during daytime consultation hours between May 30 and October 16, 2014, in terms of patient characteristics and reasons for consultation. Our goal wa ...[more]

PMID: 31312581

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Project description:PURPOSE:To determine the frequency of emergency department (ED) visits for nonurgent and urgent ocular conditions and risk factors associated with ED use for nonurgent and urgent ocular problems. DESIGN:Retrospective, longitudinal cohort analysis. PARTICIPANTS:All enrollees aged 21 years or older in a United States managed care network during 2001-2014. METHODS:We identified all enrollees visiting an ED for ocular conditions identified by International Classification of Diseases, billing codes. Diagnosis is well-described as urgent, nonurgent, or other. We assessed the frequency of ED visits for urgent and nonurgent ocular conditions and how they changed over time. Next, we performed multivariable Cox regression modeling to determine factors associated with visiting an ED for urgent or nonurgent ocular conditions. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of visiting an ED for urgent or nonurgent ocular conditions. RESULTS:Of the 11?160?833 enrollees eligible for this study, 376 680 (3.4%) had 1 or more ED visit for an eye-related problem over a mean ± standard deviation of 5.4±3.3 years' follow-up. Among these enrolled, 86 473 (23.0%) had 1 or more ED visits with a nonurgent ocular condition and 25 289 (6.7%) had at least 1 ED visit with an urgent ocular condition. Use of the ED for nonurgent ocular problems was associated with younger age (P < 0.0001 for all comparisons), black race or Latino ethnicity (P < 0.0001 for both), male sex (P < 0.0001), lower income (P < 0.0001 for all comparisons), and those who frequently sought treatment at an ED for nonophthalmologic medical problems in a given year (P < 0.0001). Enrollees with established eye care professionals had a 10% reduced hazard of visiting the ED for nonurgent ocular conditions (adjusted HR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.88-0.92; P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS:Nearly one-quarter of enrollees who visited the ED for an ocular problem received a diagnosis of a nonurgent condition. Better educating and incentivizing patients to seek care for nonurgent ocular diseases in an office-based setting could yield considerable cost savings without adversely affecting health outcomes and could allow EDs to better serve patients with more severe conditions.

Project description:ImportanceMonitoring emergency care quality requires understanding which conditions benefit most from timely, quality emergency care.ObjectivesTo identify a set of emergency care-sensitive conditions (ECSCs) that are treated in most emergency departments (EDs), are associated with a spectrum of adult age groups, and represent common reasons for seeking emergency care and to provide benchmark national estimates of ECSC acute care utilization.Design, setting, and participantsA modified Delphi method was used to identify ECSCs. In a cross-sectional analysis, ECSC-associated visits by adults (aged ≥18 years) were identified based on International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification diagnosis codes and analyzed with nationally representative data from the 2016 US Nationwide Emergency Department Sample. Data analysis was conducted from January 2018 to December 2018.Main outcomes and measuresIdentification of ECSCs and ECSC-associated ED utilization patterns, length of stay, and charges.ResultsAn expert panel rated 51 condition groups as emergency care sensitive. Emergency care-sensitive conditions represented 16 033 359 of 114 323 044 ED visits (14.0%) in 2016. On average, 8 535 261 of 17 886 220 ED admissions (47.7%) were attributed to ECSCs. The most common ECSC ED visits were for sepsis (1 716 004 [10.7%]), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (1 273 319 [7.9%]), pneumonia (1 263 971 [7.9%]), asthma (970 829 [6.1%]), and heart failure (911 602 [5.7%]) but varied by age group. Median (interquartile range) length of stay for ECSC ED admissions was longer than non-ECSC ED admissions (3.2 [1.7-5.8] days vs 2.7 [1.4-4.9] days; P < .001). In 2016, median (interquartile range) ED charges per visit for ECSCs were $2736 ($1684-$4605) compared with $2179 ($1118-$4359) per visit for non-ECSC ED visits (P < .001).Conclusions and relevanceThis comprehensive list of ECSCs can be used to guide indicator development for pre-ED, intra-ED, and post-ED care and overall assessment of the adult, non-mental health, acute care system. Health care utilization and costs among patients with ECSCs are substantial and warrant future study of validation, variations in care, and outcomes associated with ECSCs.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Whether types of hospitals with high readmission rates also have high overall postdischarge acute care utilization (including emergency department and observation care) is unknown. DESIGN:Cross-sectional analysis. SUBJECTS:Nonfederal United States acute care hospitals. MEASURES:Using methodology established by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, we calculated each hospital's "excess days in acute care" for fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries aged over 65 years discharged after hospitalization for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure (HF), or pneumonia, representing the mean difference between predicted and expected total days of acute care utilization in the 30 days following hospital discharge, per 100 discharges. We assessed the multivariable association of 8 hospital characteristics with excess days in acute care and the proportion of hospitals with each characteristic that were statistical outliers (95% credible interval estimate does not include 0). RESULTS:We included 2184 hospitals for acute myocardial infarction [228 (10.4%) better than expected, 549 (25.1%) worse than expected], 3720 hospitals for HF [484 (13.0%) better and 840 (22.6%) worse], and 4195 hospitals for pneumonia [673 (16.0%) better, 1005 (24.0%) worse]. Results for all conditions were similar. Worse than expected outliers for pneumonia included: 18.8% of safety net hospitals versus 26.1% of nonsafety net hospitals; 16.7% of public hospitals versus 33.1% of for-profit hospitals; 19.5% of nonteaching hospitals versus 52.2% of major teaching hospitals; 7.9% of rural hospitals versus 42.1% of large urban hospitals; 5.9% of hospitals with 24-<50 beds versus 58% of hospitals with >500 beds; and 29.0% of hospitals with nurse-to-bed ratios >1.0-1.5 versus 21.7% of hospitals with ratios >2.0. CONCLUSIONS:Including emergency department and observation stays in measures of postdischarge utilization produces similar results as measuring only readmissions in that major teaching, urban and for-profit hospitals still perform disproportionately poorly versus nonteaching or public hospitals. However, it enables identification of more outliers and a more granular assessment of the association of hospital factors and outcomes.

Project description:BackgroundOvercrowding in emergency department (EDs) is partly due to the use of EDs by nonurgent patients. In France, the authorities responded to the problem by creating primary care units (PCUs): alternative structures located near hospitals. The aims of the study were to assess the willingness of nonurgent patients to be reoriented to a PCU and to collect the reasons that prompted them to accept or refuse.MethodsWe carried out a cross sectional survey on patients' use of EDs. The study was conducted in a French hospital ED. Patients were interviewed about their use of health services, ED visits, referrals, activities of daily living, and insurance coverage status. Patients' medical data were also collected.Results85 patients considered nonurgent by a triage nurse were asked to respond to a questionnaire. Sex ratio was 1.4; mean age was 36.3 +/- 11.7 years.Most patients went to the ED autonomously (76%); one third (31.8%) had consulted a physician. The main reasons for using the ED were difficulty to get an appointment with a general practitioner (22.3%), feelings of pain (68.5%), and the availability of medical services in the ED, like imaging, laboratory tests, and drug prescriptions (37.6%). Traumatisms and wounds were the main medical reasons for going to the ED (43.5%).More than two-thirds of responders (68%) were willing to be reoriented towards PCUs. In the multivariate analysis, only employment and the level of urgency perceived by the patient were associated with the willingness to accept reorientation. Employed persons were 4.5 times more likely to accept reorientation (OR = 4.5 CI (1.6-12.9)). Inversely, persons who perceived a high level of urgency were the least likely to accept reorientation (OR = 0.9 CI (0.8-0.9).ConclusionsOur study provides information on the willingness of ED patients to accept reorientation and shows the limits of its feasibility. Alternative structures such as PCUs near the ED seem to respond appropriately to the growing demands of nonurgent patients. Reorientation, however, will be successful only if the new structures adapt their opening hours to the needs of nonurgent patients and if their physicians can perform specific technical skills.

Dataset Information

Inappropriate use of the emergency department for nonurgent conditions: Patient characteristics and associated factors at a Japanese hospital.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Inappropriate use of the emergency department for nonurgent conditions: Patient characteristics and associated factors at a Japanese hospital.

Similar Datasets

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