Renee Y. Hsia, MD, of the University of California in San Francisco, and colleagues used a national survey of patient visits to the emergency department between 2009 and 2011, with triage scores assigned by a nurse when the patient arrived. The scores ranged from one to five, with one through three indicating immediate, emergency and urgent patients, and four and five being semi-urgent and non-urgent. They used data on almost 60,000 observations of patients aged 18 to 64 years.
Here are five points:
1. More than 90 percent of patients had a score of one to four and were deemed “urgent” visits.
2. About eight percent had a score of five and were “nonurgent.”
3. Almost half of nonurgent visits involved diagnostic scans, imaging or blood tests, and a third involved procedures like splinting or giving intravenous fluids. About three-quarters of urgent visits involved diagnostics and half-involved procedures.
4. About four of every 100 nonurgent visits resulted in hospital admission.
5. Back ache, acute upper respiratory infections, soft-tissue inflammation and acute sore throat were among the 10 most common diagnoses for both urgent and nonurgent patients.
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