APPROPRIATENESS OF PATIENT STAY IN MEDICAL AND SURGICAL DIVISIONS OF THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

Résumé

Introduction: Inappropriate hospital stays increases hospital costs, decreases available resources for patients with the critical situation and put patients at risk of nosocomial infections.

Study Design and Settings: Prospective observational Supported by Retrospective study was conducted in the Emergency Medicine Department of SKIMS.

Aims and Objectives:

1. To study the appropriateness of patient stay.
2. To study the factors associated with an inappropriate hospital stay.
3. To study the profile of the patients attending the Emergency Medicine.

Materials and Method:

Objective I & II

A prospective observational study for a period of six months (from Ist November 2018 to 30^th April 2019) was carried out in both Surgical and Medical divisions of Emergency Medicine of SKIMS. Using simple random sampling, 20% (2000) of the total admissions (10,000) were studied.

Objective III

The study was conducted in two parts, a prospective observational study for six months (from Ist November 2018 to 30th April 2019), 20% (2000) of the total (10000) admissions were studied by simple random sampling and a retrospective study for six months (from 31^st October 2018 to Ist May 2018), All the admissions (10,581) were studied.

Results: 24.3 % of cases of hospital stay were inappropriate in Medical Side while as 41.38% of cases of hospital stay were inappropriate in Surgical Side. A most important reason for inappropriate hospital stay was delay in interdepartmental calls/shifting both in Medical (38.6%) and Surgical Emergency (24.16%).

Conclusion: Interdepartmental calls and shifting of patients to respective specialities from Emergency should be made prompt. Emergency Medicine patients should be given priority dates while undergoing high-end investigations.