scholarly journals Pain-driven emergency department visits and food insecurity: a cross-sectional study linking Canadian survey and health administrative data

CMAJ Open ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. E8-E18
Author(s):  
Fei Men ◽  
Marcelo L. Urquia ◽  
Valerie Tarasuk
Author(s):  
Maram Mohammed Jaboua ◽  
Warif Jameel Abdulhaq ◽  
Nada Saeed Almuntashiri ◽  
Sarah Saud Almohammdi ◽  
Asayel Qeblan Aldajani ◽  
...  

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a devastating impact on emergency departments worldwide, resulting in a global crisis with various health consequences. We aimed to evaluate this impact on an emergency department (ED) visit of critical conditions such as Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS), Cerebrovascular accident (CVA), Sepsis and Febrile neutropenia (FN), and to assess the quality of the ED after new adaptive measures were applied. Methods: This is a comparative cross-sectional study to assess the number of patients who presented to the ED of King Abdullah Medical city with the specified diagnosis. We collected data via the E-medical records. We compared the data over three periods pre-lockdown, lockdown and post lockdown in years 2019-2021. For quality measurement, Adaa (Ministry of Health's program) was used to calculate the percentage of patients who stayed 4 hours or less in the ED. Results: The total number of ED visits in the specified periods of study was 8387. The total numbers of patients for 2019, 2020, and 2020 respectively were 2011 (, ACS 70.4%, CVA 16.3%, sepsis and FN 13.3%.), 2733 (ACS 73.1%, CVA 9.9%, sepsis and FN 17.0%), and 3643 (ACS 64.0%, CVA 19.4%, sepsis and FN 16.7). The average percentage of patients who stayed 4 hours or less in the ED was 60% and 57.5% for 2020 and 2021, respectively. Conclusion: Although we expected reductions in ED visits during COVID-19 periods, we found that visits were rising through the years 2019-2021.


CJEM ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (S1) ◽  
pp. S94-S95
Author(s):  
R. Hossain ◽  
Z. Ma ◽  
J. Dai ◽  
S. Jamani ◽  
R. Hossain ◽  
...  

Introduction: Administrative data can aid in study and intervention design, incorporating hard-to-reach individuals who may otherwise be poorly represented. We aim to use administrative health data to examine emergency department visits by people experiencing homelessness and explore the application of this data for planning interventions. Methods: We conducted a serial cross-sectional study examining emergency department use by people experiencing homelessness and non-homeless individuals in the Niagara region of Ontario, Canada. The study period included administrative health data from April 1st, 2010 to March 31st, 2018. Outcomes included number of visits, number of unique patients; group proportions of Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) scores; time spent in emergency; and time to see an MD. Descriptive statistics were generated, and t-tests were performed for point estimates and a Mann-Whitney U test for distributional measures. Results: Our data included 1,486,699 emergency department visits. The number of unique people experiencing homelessness ranged from 91 in 2010 to 344 in 2017, trending higher over the study period compared to non-homeless patients. The rate of visits increased from 1.7 to 2.8 per person. People experiencing homelessness tend to present later in the day and with higher overall acuity as compared to the general population. Time in emergency department and time to see an MD were greater among people experiencing homelessness. Conclusion: Administrative health data allows researchers to enhance interventions and models of care to improve services for vulnerable populations. Given the challenging fiscal realities of research, our study provides insights to more effectively target interventions for vulnerable populations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (9) ◽  
pp. 1042-1050 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meenakshi P. Balakrishnan ◽  
Jill Boylston Herndon ◽  
Jingnan Zhang ◽  
Thomas Payton ◽  
Jonathan Shuster ◽  
...  

BMJ Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. e030927 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammadkarim Bahadori ◽  
Seyyed Meysam Mousavi ◽  
Ehsan Teymourzadeh ◽  
Ramin Ravangard

ObjectivesTo determine the percentage of non-urgent (NU) visits in an Iranian emergency department (ED), to explore why patients with NU conditions refer to EDs and also to assess the association between patients’ characteristics and their visits.DesignA cross sectional study based on face to face survey.SettingA territorial, teaching and military hospital in Tehran province, Iran.Participants and data collectionAll patients who visited the ED during the 2-week period were recruited. Data were collected using a validated questionnaire.ResultsOf 1884 patients who visited the ED, 1217 (64.6%) patients were triaged as NU while 667 (35.4%) were urgent and semiurgent visits cases. The most important reasons for NU visits were seeking prompt (36.6%) and less costly care (35.9%). We found that NU visits have increased with younger patients, during weekends and night shifts, and with patients suffering from recurrent symptoms lasting in 1 week or less.ConclusionsEDs are a common source of care for NU problems in Iran. The most invaluable solution is building up special clinics for providing healthcare services to NU patients during the weekends and, in the busy and night shifts. Receiving higher fees from NU patients could also be adopted with caution. Promoting awareness and knowledge of both healthcare providers and patients about the main role of EDs will contribute in improving their performance. As a long-term solution, adopting the family physician programme and ameliorating the referral system are recommended.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document