Non-Urgent Visits among Patients Seen at the Emergency Department of King Hussein Medical Center

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of non urgent visits among patients attending the Emergency Department at King Hussein Medical Center, and to describe the common presenting conditions for non urgent visits among the study group. Result: A sample 665 patients were studied; 65.6% were male, and 34.4% were female. The age range of patients was 11-90 years. Non urgent cases constituted 440 patients (66.2%), life threatening were 40 patients (6.0%), and urgent cases were 185 patients (27.8%). Among the study group, the admission frequency to the hospital wards as follows: different hospital wards 183 (27.5%), CCU 20 (3.0%), ICU 22 (3.3%), and discharge frequency (66.2%). Trauma (16.4%), cardiovascular (13.7%), respiratory (12.9%) were the most common conditions among the study group, while endocrine (1.1%) and ophthalmology (2.9%) were the least common. The number of non urgent visits was higher in males than females (66.6% versus 33.4%). Non urgent Emergency Department visits was higher in the younger age group ( 50 years). The commonest presenting condition among non urgent patients was minor trauma (20.2%) and the least was eye allergy (1.6%). The discharge frequency among non urgent visit was 66.2%. Non urgent Emergency Department visits were most frequent during 1 st shift, 2 nd shift and weekends compared with night shift. Conclusion: About two thirds of Emergency Department visits were considered to be non-urgent. Use of the Emergency Department for non urgent conditions may lead to excessive healthcare expenditure, unnecessary testing and treatment. Further analytical studies should be conducted to describe the difference between the study variables.