Patient visits to the emergency department at a Norwegian university hospital: variations in patient gender and age, timing of visits, and patient acuity

Abstract

The increase in ED visits to the St. Olav's Hospital in recent years follows the same trend as in other countries. The authors see a slightly higher percentage of high level acuity patients compared with international studies due the general practitioner's intended 'gatekeeper' function. The authors also found a high total admission rate and a low ICU admission rate compared with other countries. These differences cannot be explained solely by differences in the healthcare system in Norway. The cultural and traditional organisation of the Norwegian Health Care System needs to change and this creates an excellent opportunity to improve the competence by establishing emergency medicine as a specialty in Norway.

Implementation of advanced practice nursing for orthopaedic patients in the emergency care context – A study protocol for outcome studies

“…It is estimated that about 15% of the patients presenting to the ED in Norway are non-urgent patients (Bjornsen et al, 2013), a ratio that corresponds to recent figures from the United Kingdom (O'Keeffe, Mason, Jacques, & Nicholl, 2018). In international literature, however, considerable variability in the reporting of the proportions of non-urgent ED presentations are seen, ranging from about 5%-90% (Durand et al, 2011).…”

“…Emergency department (ED) presentations are increasing (Bjornsen, Uleberg, & Dale, ; Tang, Stein, Hsia, Maselli, & Gonzales, ) and overcrowding is a common problem (Velt et al, ). One approach used to increase ED throughput is the introduction of clinical pathways for specific patient groups (Eriksson, Kelly‐Pettersson, Stark, Ekman, & Skoldenberg, ; Wireklint Sundstrom et al, ).…”

Assessment of the health care system functioning in Poland in light of the analysis of the indicators of the hospital emergency department (ED) and primary health care (PHC) – proposals for systemic solutions

“…Although these activities are found in the catalogue of rescue procedures and each patient is a separate case requiring individual consideration, the fact that mainly procedures from lower categories are performed at the ED and a small percentage of admissions from the ED to ICU (it accounted for 0.4% of all admissions to the ED in each year in the years 2012-2014 and was low) may indirectly indicate the burden on the ED with non-urgent cases. For comparison, in Norway, the percentage of admissions from the ED to ICU is fluctuating around 1% [4], and in Denmark, around 1.6% [49]. In the USA, the percentage of admissions from the ED to ICU accounted for 1.5% of all ED admissions in 2011 [50], and 1.1% in 2015 [51].…”

“…The last three decades have seen a dramatic increase in the number of patients reporting in developed countries to hospital emergency departments (EDs) [1][2][3][4][5]. The low level of satisfaction with the services provided by primary health care staff, difficulties in making an appointment to a primary health care facility, lack of trust and very long waiting time for a visit may lead to reporting to hospital emergency departments in non-urgent situations [6].…”

Entwöhnung von der Langzeitbeatmung: Daten eines Weaningzentrums von 2007 bis 2011

“…Gründe sind die Verbesserung des Notarztsystems, wodurch mehr Menschen überleben -wenn auch schwerer krank [4,23] -und die verbesserte Gesundheitsversorgung. Letztere führt vermehrt zu älteren und kränkeren Patienten, die dann auch häufiger als früher operiert werden [1,10,26].…”