Reasons for encounter by different levels of urgency in out-of-hours emergency primary health care in Norway: a cross sectional study

Guttorm Raknes,Steinar Hunskaar

doi:10.1186/s12873-017-0129-2

Abstract

BackgroundFrequencies of reasons for encounter (RFEs) in emergency primary care out-of-hours (OOH) services are relevant for planning of capacities as well as to target the training of staff at casualty clinics. We aimed to present frequencies of RFEs in the different organ systems, and to identify the most frequent RFEs at different urgency levels.MethodsWe analyzed data on RFEs in Norwegian OOH services. International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC-2) RFE codes were recorded in all contacts to eight representative OOH casualty clinics in 2014 and 2015 covering 20 municipalities with a total population of 260 196. Frequencies of each ICPC-2 chapters and groups of ICPC-2 codes were calculated at different urgency levels.ResultsMusculoskeletal, respiratory, skin, digestive and general and unspecified issues were the most frequent RFE groups. Fever was the most frequent single ICPC-2 RFE code, but was less common among the most urgent cases. Abdominal pain was the most common RFE in patients with yellow urgency level (urgent), and chest pain dominated the potentially red (potentially life threatening) cases. There was less variation in the use of ICPC-2 with increasing urgency level.ConclusionsThis study identifies important differences in RFEs between urgency levels in the Norwegian OOH services. The findings provide new insight into the function of the primary health care emergency services in the Norwegian health care system, and should have implications for staffing, training and equipment in the OOH services.

Highlights

Frequencies of reasons for encounter (RFEs) in emergency primary care out-of-hours (OOH) services are relevant for planning of capacities as well as to target the training of staff at casualty clinics
For the development of standardized qualification requirements for casualty clinic staff, it is important to know which conditions OOH nurses and doctors should expect at different urgency levels, and how often
Design/setting We performed a cross sectional study based on data from the “Watchtower project”, a sentinel network of representative OOH emergency primary health care activity in Norway

Summary

Introduction

Frequencies of reasons for encounter (RFEs) in emergency primary care out-of-hours (OOH) services are relevant for planning of capacities as well as to target the training of staff at casualty clinics. We aimed to present frequencies of RFEs in the different organ systems, and to identify the most frequent RFEs at different urgency levels. The organization of out-of-hours (OOH) emergency health care services varies considerably between countries, and this may lead to differences in what medical conditions the OOH services handle. The population have direct access to emergency rooms in hospitals, primary care services are available. For the development of standardized qualification requirements for casualty clinic staff, it is important to know which conditions OOH nurses and doctors should expect at different urgency levels, and how often

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