Change in Acceptance Rate of Emergency Transfer According to Personnel who Receive the Emergency Transfer Request

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To allocate emergency patients to appropriate hospitals, the 1339 emergency medical information center should contact personnel in individual hospitals for information about the availability of medical resources, with the contacted individuals deciding to accept or to reject the transfer request. The acceptance ratio would influence the time spent finding appropriate hospitals, and would affect the quality of emergency care. The acceptance or rejection ratio of emergency transfer request was analyzed with regard to the personnel receiving the transfer requests. METHODS: The study involved intern doctors in their emergency medicine (EM) rotation or nurses in 2007, EM doctors in 2008~2010, and doctors from the specialty departments in 2010 in one study hospital who made decisions whether to accept patients asked to be received by emergency information center. The data registered in computerized database in the emergency information center were analyzed. RESULTS: The total number of phone calls asking for emergency transfers to the study hospital from March 1 to August 31 in 2007, 2009, and 2010 was 798, 1,100, and 1,334, respectively. Accepted cases were 375(47%) in 2007, 708(64.4%) in 2009 and 801(60.0%) in 2010. CONCLUSION: The hospital staffs or members of department (e.g. Emergency department) who can take charge of the data related to pre-hospital patients should decide whether to accept the patients asked to be received into hospital or not.