Variation in resource allocation in urgent and emergency Care Systems in Ireland.

ABSTRACT:

Background

A key challenge for most systems is how to provide effective access to urgent and emergency care across rural and urban populations. Tensions about the placement and scope of hospital emergency services are longstanding in Irish political life and there has been recent reform to centralise hospital services in some regions. The focus of this paper is a system approach to examine the geographic variation in resourcing and utilisation of such care across GP practices, out-of-hours care, ambulance services, Emergency Departments and Local Injury Units in Ireland.

Methods

We used a cross-sectional study design to evaluate variation in resource allocation by aggregating geographic funding to various elements of the urgent and emergency care system and assessing pattern

SUBMITTER: Thomas S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6737720 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature