Approximately half of Australian patients who used a call center service for consultation on a medical condition and went to the emergency department did so despite the center's recommendation not to go, according to a study in Medical Journal of Australia.
Researchers studied ED patients at Royal Perth Hospital in Western Australia from August 2008 to April 2009. They also used data from healthdirect Australia, a national health call center network established in 2006 to provide healthcare triage, advice and information by registered nurses. The researchers evaluated the differences in appropriateness of ED referrals among healthdirect-referred patients, self-referred patients and general practitioner-referred patients.
The authors defined referrals as appropriate if the patient experienced one or more of the following events:
• Admission to hospital.
• Referral to an inpatient team for assessment.
• Referral to an outpatient clinic.
• Transfer to another hospital.
• Death in the ED.
• Performance of any radiological or laboratory investigations.
Results showed that 72.9 percent of healthdirect-referred ED patients had appropriate referrals, compared with 73.8 percent of self-referred patients and 89.7 of GP referred patients.
In addition, of the 534 healthdirect-referred patients whose calls could be traced back to the healthdirect database, 52.4 percent attended the ED against the call center's recommendation. The authors suggested this rate may be due to the difficulty of accessing after-hours health services.
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Researchers studied ED patients at Royal Perth Hospital in Western Australia from August 2008 to April 2009. They also used data from healthdirect Australia, a national health call center network established in 2006 to provide healthcare triage, advice and information by registered nurses. The researchers evaluated the differences in appropriateness of ED referrals among healthdirect-referred patients, self-referred patients and general practitioner-referred patients.
The authors defined referrals as appropriate if the patient experienced one or more of the following events:
• Admission to hospital.
• Referral to an inpatient team for assessment.
• Referral to an outpatient clinic.
• Transfer to another hospital.
• Death in the ED.
• Performance of any radiological or laboratory investigations.
Results showed that 72.9 percent of healthdirect-referred ED patients had appropriate referrals, compared with 73.8 percent of self-referred patients and 89.7 of GP referred patients.
In addition, of the 534 healthdirect-referred patients whose calls could be traced back to the healthdirect database, 52.4 percent attended the ED against the call center's recommendation. The authors suggested this rate may be due to the difficulty of accessing after-hours health services.
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