Work analysis in emergency neurological department of University Hospital Split in one-year period

Abstract

Overcrowding of emergency departments all over the world has been recognised as one of the growing problems. The aim of our investigation was to determine the level of overcrowding in the neurological emergency room of the University Hospital Centre Split. This is a retrospective analysis of all patients that were examined in our emergency reception during the one-year period. We examined 8146 patients (around 22 patients per day). The main reason of their arrival was stroke (1,822 patients – 22%) but more than half of the patients were judged as non- urgent and they were sent to outpatient treatment. A total of 1,616 patients presented to the emergency department with (sub)acute complaints of cervical or lumbar spine. With this investigation we proved that there is a problem of overcrowding in our neurological emergency room and the existence of a very large number of non-urgent patients. We believe that better education of patients and doctors could be the solution of this problem.

Keywords

• emergency service
• hospital – statistics and numerical data; health services misuse –prevention and control
• statistics and numerical data; hospitals