Admission appropriateness and profile of the patients attended to a state hospital emergency department

The aim of this study was to determine the profile and appropriateness of the patients' indications admitted to the emergency department in a state hospital. Adult and pediatric trauma patients admitted to the emergency department of Van State Hospital between March 01 and March 31, 2010, in the course of one month period, were retrospectively analyzed. Data of the 32800 patients admitted to the emergency department during this period were evaluated. Male and female ratio of these patients was 54.8% and 45.2%, respectively, and the most intense group with 77% was the age group of 17-65. The majority of the applications with 60.5% occurred between 8 a.m. and 17 p.m. An examination was asked for 50% of the patients. It was determined that emergency examinations and therapies were applied to 9.9% of the patients, consultation rates were 4.5%, and the highest consultations were taken from orthopedic clinics (16.1%). It was established that 1.4% of the patients were hospitalized, with the highest admission to the general surgery clinic (13.8%). In hospitalized patients, the most common diagnoses were abdominal pain (9.6%), and 88.4% of the patients were discharged from the emergency department. It was observed that the majority of patients admitted to the emergency department need not have been in emergency, and should have applied to primary health care services and policlinics. The results of this study showed that non-emergency patients highly increase the workload of emergency departments, therefore, patients should be trained and awareness of patients should be increased; primary health care services should be made available; accurate, effective and enforceable policies for emergency medical services in the country must be established.