Published in:
01-04-2022 | Emergency Medicine | CE-Research Letter to the Editor
Mandatory referral for unplanned hospital admissions led to a 9.4% reduction in attendances
Authors:
Mikkel Brabrand, Stefan Posth, Mickael Bech, Sören Möller, Marianne Fløjstrup, Søren Bie Bogh
Published in:
Internal and Emergency Medicine
|
Issue 3/2022
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Excerpt
Emergency departments around the world are reporting increased activity and thus increased risk of crowding [
1]. As crowding is a high-risk situation for patients and staff with potentially detrimental outcomes [
2], hospital owners and governmental bodies are trying to control patient influx [
1,
3]. One way to limit emergency department access is to require prior mandatory referral from a primary healthcare provider. From 2011 to 2014, Denmark implemented nationwide mandatory referral for access to an emergency department, and a similar scheme was recently introduced in the UK [
4]. Danish citizens are now required to either contact a general practitioner, request emergency medical services, or call a hotline staffed by experienced emergency nurses. This letter describes the effect of such mandatory referral on the number of hospital attendances. …