Associations between in-hospital bed occupancy and unplanned 72-h revisits to the emergency department: a register study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

A possible downstream effect of high in-hospital bed occupancy is that patients in the emergency department (ED) who would benefit from in-hospital care are denied admission. The present study aimed at evaluating this hypothesis through investigating associations between in-hospital bed occupancy at the time of presentation in the ED and the probability for unplanned 72-hour (72-h) revisits to the ED among patients discharged at index. A second outcome was unplanned 72-h revisits resulting in admission.

Methods

All visits to the ED of a 420-bed emergency hospital in southern Sweden between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2012, which did not result in admission, death, or transfer to another hospital were included. Revisiting fractions were computed for in-hospital

SUBMITTER: Blom MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4080705 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature