1887
2 - International Conference in Emergency Medicine and Public Health-Qatar Proceedings
  • ISSN: 1999-7086
  • EISSN: 1999-7094

Abstract

Hamad General Hospital (HGH) Emergency Department (ED) provided 465,942 patient visits in 2014. (ED) use has increased annually resulting in overcrowding, longer wait periods for service and increased stress on health care workers. Much attention has been paid to factors contributing to this increased usage such as the return visit of an (ED) patient within 48 hours of the initial visit. 48 hours is the benchmark time period used in measuring (ED) return visits utilized by many countries and it became a mandatory quality indicator of performance by the Supreme Council of Health in Qatar on April 2015. This study was conducted to identify factors associated with scheduled and unscheduled 48 hours return visits to serve as a basis for a Quality Improvement Project (QIP) for development of interventions to decrease unscheduled returns.

An exploratory quantitative study using a descriptive correlational design was performed. The sample consisted of all patients had a return visits to (ED) within 48 hours from the discharge time during January 2015 at the study facility. Data were abstracted from electronic patients’ records utilizing the data collection tool, all electronic records was reviewed by experienced emergency physicians.

For the study month of January 2015 there were 1023 return visits within 48 hours from the discharge time (2%) out of 42981 (ED) patients. 906 visits (89%) was unplanned out of them 102 visits (11%) was clinically significant. 85 cases(9%) were admitted on the return visit and we had no mortality cases. Abdominal pain was the main presenting complaint (28%) of all revisits followed by musculoskeletal pain (13%) for patients whom presenting with the same complaint.

Abdominal pain is the most frequent complaint associated with unscheduled return visits. Further Study is important to design and implement interventions to decrease the frequency of unscheduled returns.

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/content/journals/10.5339/jemtac.2016.icepq.100
2016-10-09
2024-03-28
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http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.5339/jemtac.2016.icepq.100
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  • Article Type: Research Article
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