Who does it more often useless access to the Emergency Department? More and more often the news tells us about situations of overcrowding in Italian emergency rooms. This is experienced by patients as one of the main problems of the National Health Service. In reality it is also experienced by scientific societies as an important problem. It represents a factor of increased clinical risk and complications.
Now a new Italian study, conducted by geriatricians of the Italian Society of Geriatrics, Hospital and Territory – SORRY – and of the Italian Society of Gerontology and Geriatrics – Messrs, underlines how more young people use the emergency rooms inappropriately. This is the research with the highest sample size ever done. The results were published in the scientific journal Geriatrics & Gerontology International.
AUseless excesses in the Emergency Department: here are all the data by age group
In detail, the accesses of the elderly to the emergency room are appropriate four times more than in young people, going from 10.7% in the 40-44 age group to 36.8% and 44.2% in the more advanced age groups. An increase in the appropriateness that is also found in hospitalizations, more justified in the elderly.
More than 20 million hits put under review
The researchers took the data from EMUR, the Information System for Emergency and Urgency of the Ministry of Health. The amount of accesses examined is impressive: 20,400,071. The experts have put the accesses to the ED under the magnifying glass on the basis of age and have verified their appropriateness with the criterion of the different gravity codes. The severity is low with a white or green code, while the yellow code indicates an emergency situation and the red one the imminent danger of life.
The appropriateness of visits to the Emergency Department, therefore a validated yellow or red code, progressively increases with age. He was born in:
- 6.3% in the 5-9 age group,
- 10.7% in the 40-44 age group,
- 36.8% in the 85-89 age group,
- 44.2% in the 95-99 age range.
Hospitalization data confirm the same line
Following the visit to the emergency departments, the patient can be discharged or, in severe cases, hospitalized. Also in this case the most appropriate remain the elderly. Researchers have demonstrated that the percentage of people hospitalized only in the presence of truly serious pathologies, marked in the ED by a yellow or red code. it is highest among the elderly.
Naturally, in general terms, the number of accesses in the elderly population is higher. PS accesses grow progressively with age. Out of a thousand inhabitants over the age of 90, there are 500 accesses a year. The number drops to around 200-250 in the younger age groups.