BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Hospital Emergency inappropriate attendances need to be evaluated, including emergencies that can be solved in primary care. The study aim was to validate a Hospital Emergency Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol (HEAEP) having into account patient health care setting. MATERIAL AND METHOD: An HEAEP with explicit criteria was developed. We randomly chose 100 emergency medical records among all patients attended at the Granada Hospital Ruiz de Alda in the first quarter of 2000. Records were evaluated by six emergency specialists to compare results provided by the HEAEP. RESULTS: The HEAEP identified as appropriate all attendances so classified by experts. As inappropriate, HEAEP only pointed out 69% of the emergency visits considered as inappropriate by experts. CONCLUSIONS: The modified HEAEP shown a good internal validity and high reproducibility. The main advantage is to point out as inappropriate emergency attendances that can be solved in primary care.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Hospital Emergency inappropriate attendances need to be evaluated, including emergencies that can be solved in primary care. The study aim was to validate a Hospital Emergency Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol (HEAEP) having into account patient health care setting. MATERIAL AND METHOD: An HEAEP with explicit criteria was developed. We randomly chose 100 emergency medical records among all patients attended at the Granada Hospital Ruiz de Alda in the first quarter of 2000. Records were evaluated by six emergency specialists to compare results provided by the HEAEP. RESULTS: The HEAEP identified as appropriate all attendances so classified by experts. As inappropriate, HEAEP only pointed out 69% of the emergency visits considered as inappropriate by experts. CONCLUSIONS: The modified HEAEP shown a good internal validity and high reproducibility. The main advantage is to point out as inappropriate emergency attendances that can be solved in primary care.
Authors: Hilde Philips; Roy Remmen; Paul Van Royen; Marc Teblick; Leo Geudens; Marc Bronckaers; Herman Meeuwis Journal: BMC Health Serv Res Date: 2010-07-30 Impact factor: 2.655