Evaluation of the Characteristics of Revisits to an Adult Emergency Department Within 72 Hours

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine revisits of the patients discharged from the adult emergency department of our hospital in the early period (72 hours) between January 2016 and December 2016, and to evaluate characteristics of these revisits. In this study, records of the patients discharged from the adult emergency department in 2016 were retrospectively screened from the hospital information management system. Of the 361,413 patients, 7,800 (2.1%) met the inclusion criteria. The most common cause of the initial presentation was unexplained pain with 890 (11.4%) patients, while the most common diagnosis in revisits was acute upper respiratory tract infection with 642 (8.2%) patients. It was found that 18 patients (2.23%) died in the emergency department. No significant difference was found between triage scores of the emergency department presentations, while 161 patients with green area triage in the initial presentation presented to the red area and 134 of these patients were discharged. In our study, the revisit rate was similar with the studies in the literature. It was observed that the majority of the patients who revisited were discharged after the initial visit and they presented to the emergency department again upon their complaints continued. It was thought that revisits can be largely prevented with correct prescription and providing better information to patients.