Articles: emergency-services.
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A survey was conducted of the telephone callers who sought advice from the accident and emergency department of a 250 bed public hospital. The aim of the one month long survey was to determine the extent of the department's telephone triage and whether there was a need for formal protocols that reflected the medical and legal responsibilities attached to giving health-related advice by telephone. ⋯ Callers were advised by the registered nurses or doctors who happened to answer the telephone and there were no guidelines and no documentation of calls. As a result of the study, the Riverina Health Service instituted telephone triage protocols for all hospitals in its area and nurses now receive inservice education about their telephone triage role and responsibilities.
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Rev Epidemiol Sante · Jan 1995
[Hospital discharge planning and length of hospital stay in elderly patients admitted through the emergency department].
A prospective study was organized in two teaching hospitals in Paris, including 426 elderly patients aged 75 and more, who had been hospitalized through the medical emergency department. The goal of the study was to assess the influence of difficulties of orientation at discharge on the length of stay, independently of other risk factors. The mean length of stay was 18.3 +/- 15.4 days. ⋯ Multivariate analysis showed that discharge toward a social or a nursing care institution was the first explanatory factor, explaining 12% of variance. These results suggest that the hospital discharge management has a major influence on the elderly length of hospital stay. Therefore, an interdisciplinary care management, including social and geriatric evaluation as soon as the patient is admitted at the emergency department, should be evaluated, in order to avoid problems of orientation that may occur at discharge.