Urgent care in the community: an observational study

Abstract

PurposeThis case study describes a community-based urgent care clinic in a general practitioner (GP) super clinic in South East Queensland.Design/methodology/approachThis retrospective chart audit describes patient demographic characteristics, types of presentations and management for Sundays in 2015.FindingsThe majority of patients (97%) did not require admission to hospital or office investigations (95%) and presented with one condition (94%). Of the presentations, 66.5% were represented by 30 conditions. Most patients received a prescription (57%), some were referred to the pathology laboratory (15%) and some were referred to radiology (12%). A majority (54%) of patients presented in the first three hours. Approximately half (51%) of patients presenting were aged under 25. More females (53%) presented than males. A majority (53%) lived in the same postcode as the clinic. The three most common office tests ordered were urinalysis, electrocardiogram (ECG) and urine pregnancy test. Some patients (19%) needed procedures, and only 3% were referred to hospital.Research limitations/implicationsThe study offers analysis of the client group that can be served by an urgent care clinic in a GP super clinic on a Sunday. The study provides an option for emergency department avoidance.Originality/valueDespite calls for more research into community-based urgent care clinics, little is known in Australia about what constitutes an urgent care clinic. The study proposes a classification system for walk-in presentations to an urgent care clinic, which is comparable to emergency department presentations.

Patient presentations to an after-hours general practice, an urgent care clinic and an emergency department on Sundays: a comparative, observational study

“…However, point-of-care testing such as I-stat machines in UCCs, which test for haemoglobin, sodium, potassium and bicarbonate, can obtain these results within minutes and, if available, could help with hospital avoidance (Abbott, 2020; Adie et al ., 2021). The higher proportion of referrals for imaging at the UCC where there was X-ray on-site (13%) compared to AH-GP where there was no X-ray on-site on Sunday (6%) (see Table 7) could be explained by the higher proportion of patients consulting doctors in UCCs with injury (20%) compared with the AH-GP (8%) (see Table 4).…”

“…This study was a comparative audit that involved the retrospective analysis of data from the medical records of all patients, of all ages, who presented, with NLTUC, to three facilities, on Sundays between 0,800 and 1,700 h, over a 12-month period, on the Sunshine Coast, Qld, Australia. Previously published data from an observational study of the study UCC using these same parameters (Adie et al ., 2021) were again used to compare with an AH- GP and EDs. Sunday was chosen because we were interested in after-hours patient presentations on the day when the least number of general practices were open.…”

“…The coding for ED was provided by the Medical Records Department of the Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service (SCHHS). Unlike the data from the study UCC (Adie et al, 2021), the data provided from the ED were not able to be double checked in the same manner as the UCC data. This is because there was no access to the notes, only data provided by the data custodians of the SCHHS.…”