Is continuity of care preserved in children who utilize the pediatric emergency department ?

Inner city families often use multiple sites for nonemergent medical care, including the pediatric emergency department. This practice raises concerns about continuity of care. The present study examined one aspect of continuity of care: Do children who receive care in a pediatric emergency departme...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pediatrics (Evanston) 1995, Vol.95 (1), p.37-41
Main Authors: VIVIER, P. M, LEWANDER, W. J, BLOCK, S. H, SIMON, P. R, ALARIO, A. J, LINAKIS, J. G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Child, Preschool
Community Health Centers
Continuity of Patient Care - statistics & numerical data
Continuum of care
Emergency medical services
Emergency Service, Hospital
Evaluation
Female
Humans
Male
Medical care utilization
Medical sciences
Miscellaneous
Patient Compliance
Pediatric clinics
Pediatrics
Poverty Areas
Primary Health Care - utilization
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Rhode Island
Urban Population
Utilization
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Inner city families often use multiple sites for nonemergent medical care, including the pediatric emergency department. This practice raises concerns about continuity of care. The present study examined one aspect of continuity of care: Do children who receive care in a pediatric emergency department return to their primary care site so that appropriate follow up may be obtained? Over a 4-week period two groups of neighborhood health center children were studied: Those who sought care at the pediatric emergency department and those who were "walk-ins" at the health centers. All visits during the 4-week study period which resulted in a recommendation for the child to be seen within 6 weeks at the health centers were included in the analysis. During the study period there were 87 patient visits to the pediatric emergency department with a documented physician instruction to be seen at their health center within 6 weeks. In 66 (76%) of the cases, the patient was seen at one of the health centers during the 6 weeks following the pediatric emergency department visit. There were 146 "walk-in" visits to the health centers with a documented physician instruction to be seen again at the health centers during the 6 weeks following the walk-in visit. In 111 (76%) of the cases, the patient was seen during the 6-week period. Our study shows that revisit rates were comparable for the two groups. We conclude that the rate of compliance with follow-up recommendations is similar for those who utilized the pediatric emergency department versus those who used the primary care site.
ISSN:0031-4005
1098-4275
DOI:10.1542/peds.95.1.37