Archives of disease in childhood
-
Multicenter Study Comparative Study Controlled Clinical Trial
A community intervention trial to evaluate emergency care practitioners in the management of children.
To evaluate the impact of emergency care practitioners (ECPs) on the patient care pathway for children presenting with minor conditions in unscheduled care settings. ⋯ ECPs are not as effective as usual health providers in discharging children after assessment of urgent healthcare problems. This has implications for the workload of other paediatric providers such as the emergency department. ECPs may be better targeted to settings and patients groups in which there is more evidence of their effectiveness in patient care pathways.