PREHOSPITAL CARE

Does setting up out of hours primary care cooperatives outside a hospital reduce demand for emergency care?

C J T van Uden^1,2 and H F J M Crebolder²

¹ Department of Integrated Care, Research Institute Caphri, University Hospital Maastricht, Netherlands
² Department of General Practice, Research Institute Caphri, University of Maastricht, Netherlands

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
C J T van Uden
Department of Integrated Care (BZe7), University Hospital Maastricht, PO Box 5800, 6202 AZ Maastricht, Netherlands; caro.vanuden{at}hag.unimaas.nl

Objective: To investigate whether the reorganisation of out of hours primary care, from practice rotas to GP cooperatives, changed utilisation of primary and hospital emergency care.

Methods: During a four week period before and a four week period after the reorganisation of out of hours primary care in a region in the south of the Netherlands all patient contacts with general practitioners and hospital accident and emergency (A&E) departments were analysed.

Results: A 10% increase was found in patient contacts with out of hours primary care, and a 9% decrease in patient contacts with out of hours emergency care. The number of self referrals at the A&E department was reduced by about 4%.

Conclusions: The reorganisation of out of hours primary care has led to a shift in patient contacts from emergency care to primary care.

Keywords: emergency services; out of hours care

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Primary survey

Jim Wardrope
Emerg. Med. J. 2004 21: 651. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Herbert, H. (2007). Should general practitioners resume 24 hour responsibility for their patients? No. BMJ 335: 697-697 [Full Text]  
• Giesen, P, Franssen, E, Mokkink, H, van den Bosch, W, van Vugt, A, Grol, R (2006). Patients either contacting a general practice cooperative or accident and emergency department out of hours: a comparison.. Emerg. Med. J. 23: 731-734 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Marcovitch, H. (2004). What's new this month in BMJ Journals. BMJ 329: 1208-1208 [Full Text]