Scope of Patient Needs
The Hospital Emergency Department (ED) serves a patient population that traverses the life span to include newborns, infants, toddler, pre-school, school age, adolescent, young adult, middle adult, and older adult age groups. Treatment and care is not refused to any patient.
All patients seeking care at our ED shall receive an initial evaluation and stabilizing treatment that includes providing any necessary testing and on-call specialty services within the capability of the facility.
There are 60,000 annual visits, and the services are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The most common discharge diagnosis evaluated in the ED include: Sickle Cell- painful crisis, abdominal pain, minor injuries, asthma, fever, dizziness, renal colic, open wound of finger, headache, lower leg injury and acute respiratory infections.
Patients who attend Emergency Department (ED) with acute illnesses or injuries and who are not admitted to a ward may have some form of outpatient follow up arranged. Our data showed that more than half of ED patients are discharged with instructions to follow up with an outpatient clinic or PHC, yet many patients do not comply or are not able to obtain a timely appointment.
To overcome these problems and improve continuity of patient care, we are starting, from January 2009, “ED Review Clinics” in the department, for a planned review of patients with selected problems. This has many advantages, not only for patients, but also for staff in terms of training, education, and feedback.