Emergency Department redirection to primary care: a prospective evaluation of practice

Abstract

Background and Aim: Non-urgent Emergency Department (ED) presentations contribute

Why do patients with minor complaints choose emergency departments and does satisfaction with primary care services influence their decisions?

“…To get a more efficient emergency service, non-urgent cases could be evaluated by family physicians. In the United Kingdom, for example, redirection of patients from the green zone to GPs after a preliminary examination in triage is an effort towards a solution of the problem (Bentley et al, 2017).…”

Urgent care centre redirection: evaluation of a nurse-led intervention

“…Our study builds on previous work in this area (Begum et al, 2015;Bentley et al, 2017;Lacobucci, 2017;NHS England, 2016): in addition to being based in an UCC and delivered by a nurse, the SCARF intervention also provided the opportunity to provide advice about self-care. Enabling patients to selfcare means they will feel more empowered to manage their own healthcare needs if a similar situation arises in the future (Tang, Funnell, Brown, & Kurlander, 2010).…”

“…Uncertainty about what service to use and ease of access are the most common reasons for seeking urgent and emergency care (Amiel et al, 2014). Patient redirection is gaining increasing recognition as an approach that can safely reduce service demand by providing information about more appropriate services and/or options for self-care (Begum, Khan, & Moss, 2015;Bentley, Thakore, Morrison, & Wang, 2017;Lacobucci, 2017;NHS England, 2016). However, to date redirection interventions have been led by either senior doctors or GPs and based in A&E departments.…”

Safety and efficiency of a redirection procedure toward an out of hours general practice before admission to an emergency department, an observational study

“…Few studies have evaluated in different health care systems to what extent patients with minor ailments can be redirected from the ED towards a primary care provider. Using a redirection procedure similar to ours, Bentley found a higher redirection rate of 7% in a Scottish teaching hospital, with a sub-optimal care rate of 0.23% as a result of the redirection [ 14 ]. In our study, only one of the 221 redirected patients who could be contacted for the interview required a subsequent hospitalization, for a benign condition.…”