Unscheduled return visits by patients to a german emergency department are a high risk group for initial wrong diagnosis

Abstract

The aim was to classify patients who returned unscheduled to an emergency department within 7 days. We categorized the patients’ cases arbitrarily according to the underlying cause of the return. The main causes for returning unscheduled were: “patient related” (24,2%), “illness related” (35,4%), “physician related” (18,3%), “system related” (3,8%) and “other” (21,7%). We also analyzed missed diagnoses, as the literature describes this special patient population as a high risk group. 15,4% of all return cases had a wrong diagnosis. No typical risk constellation/symptom could be found. Vital signs or blood values were within normal limits as well.