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KMID : 1214920120180010043
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Soonchunhyang Medical Science
2012 Volume.18 No. 1 p.43 ~ p.47
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An Experience of Operating the Pediatric Emergency Room
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Kim Jae-Woo
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Abstract
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Objective: This hospital has operated the pediatric emergency room from 2011 as being appointed for ‘the pediatric emergency room model construction project’ by the government. Thus, the author attempted to evaluate the effect of emergency room crowding by comparing the length of stay before and after the introduction of the pediatric emergency room.
Methods: This study compared and analyzed the length of stay according to age, time distribution, injury/non-injury, in-patient/returning home to young patients under 15 years before the operating the pediatric emergency room between January and December 2010 and after the introduction between January and December 2011, respectively. The length of stay of adult patients in the same period was also examined.
Results: Despite the increase of pediatric emergency room and in-hospital patients by 63% and 94% after the operation of the pediatric emergency room respectively, the length of stay of the emergency room reduced from 1.8 to 1.4 hours. However, due to the shortage of sick-beds the length of stay of in-hospital patients increased from 3.4 to 4.3 hours. While the hospitalization admission procedure time reduced considerably from 1.8 to 0.9 hours, the time of injured patients had no changes. The number of adult patients and in-hospital patients increased 18%, 8%, respectively, and the length of stay in the emergency room reduced from 2.7 to 2.5 hours.
Conclusion: Despite increasing the number of pediatric and in-hospital adult patients, the length of stay of the emergency room reduced owing to the operation of the pediatric emergency room which helped to reduce emergency room crowding. However, the ultimate resolution of congestion of the emergency room requires sufficient professional personnel and hospital’s policy support to solve a sick-bed shortage problem.
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KEYWORD
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Pediatric, Emergencies, Crowding, Length of stay
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