PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Fergus D O'Kelly
AU  - Conor Teljeur
AU  - Ian Carter
AU  - Patrick K Plunkett
TI  - Impact of a GP cooperative on lower acuity emergency department attendances
AID  - 10.1136/emj.2009.072686
DP  - 2010 Oct 01
TA  - Emergency Medicine Journal
PG  - 770--773
VI  - 27
IP  - 10
4099  - http://emj.bmj.com/content/27/10/770.short
4100  - http://emj.bmj.com/content/27/10/770.full
SO  - Emerg Med J2010 Oct 01; 27
AB  - Background In 1998 ‘Dubdoc’, Ireland's first out-of-hours general practice emergency service, opened in an outpatient suite in St James's Hospital with a separate entrance 300 m from the emergency department (ED). Dubdoc was established with the aim of providing an easy access out-of-hours service for ambulatory patients of those doctors supplying the service.Aim To determine whether ED attendances for patients in the lower acuity triage categories 4 and 5 have changed since the establishment of ‘Dubdoc’.Methods A retrospective review of all attendances at the ‘Dubdoc’ service was compared with attendances at the ED for triage categories 4 and 5 of the same hospital over a 9-year period (1999–2007 inclusive) for equivalent times of day.Results ED attendances during ‘Dubdoc’ hours have decreased as a proportion of all attendances for triage categories 4 and 5. ED attendances for triage categories 4 and 5 fell substantially during the study period.Conclusions Although the presence of the ‘Dubdoc’ service has resulted in a decrease in ED attendances for triage categories 4 and 5, this is a minor proportion of the overall decrease in attendances in this group of patients.