A Model of Emergency Department Throughput in Poland

Author(s): Przemysław Guła, Halina Kutaj-Wąsikowska, Marcin Kalinowski

The growing number of patients handled at the Emergency Departments is a well known and widely discussed phenomenon. It can also be observed in Poland. Nevertheless, a significant number of the 233 Emergency Departments operating under a service contract handle less than 20,000 persons per year. The objective of the research was an attempt to assess the ED throughput in Poland. A questionnaire based study conducted by the National Center for Quality in Healthcare (CMJ) provided data concerning the intensity of admissions at the EDs, the percentage of “urgent health threat” cases and the number of persons who need to be hospitalised and those handled at Emergency Departments. The results show large discrepancies in the assessment of urgent threats and the lack of a single triage model. Another clear conclusion is that the Emergency Departments perform their duties by taking over the diagnostics and treatment of over 60% of patients who visit the hospital on unplanned basis. Any further review of the EDs patient flow shall require the adoption of uniform criteria and tools of analysis.