Authors

1Diego Jiménez López, 2Rosa Miñana Puig, 3Mª Teresa Climent Arbona, 1Liliana Blay Mengual, 4Raquel Escrivá Sanchis

Position

¹Enfermero/a del Servicio de Urgencias, Hospital Comarcal Francisco de Borja de Gandía. ²Subdirectora de Enfermería de Urgencias. ³Supervisora del Servicio de Urgencias, Hospital Comarcal Francisco de Borja de Gandía.⁴Directora Adjunta de Enfermería, Hospital Comarcal Francisco de Borja de Gandía.

Contact address

Diego Jiménez López.C/ Goleta 3, 3º, puerta 6. 46730 Grao de Gandía (Valecia).

Contact email: didac6060@hotmail.com

Abstract

Objectives: to describe the characteristics of patients treated and admitted to the emergency recovery box, determine the mean stay time and identify factors that may affect the flow of patients through the recovery box.
Material and method: prospective descriptive study of the patient population admitted and treated at the recovery box over a period of one month (15/04/2011 to 15/05/2011). The following variables were analyzed: socio-demographic characteristics, origin, day of the week, time of admission, time of discharge, length of stay, reason for diagnosis, priority based on triage, intervention type, destination and subjective assessment of the professional intervening on the adequacy of triage.
Results: of 5,512 patients seen in the emergency room, 2,2% (121) were admitted to the recovery box. Mean patient age was 65,7 (± 20,65). 49,6% were between 70 and 89 years old. The most frequent pathology (59%) was of cardiovascular origin. 38% of the cases treated were classified as "Level II.
Orange Code", 30,6% were classified as "Level I. Red Code". The greatest demand (highest frequentation) for care occurred in the morning shift, between 12:01 and 15:00 h. Friday was the day when the highest number of admissions occurred (18,2%). Mean time of stay of patients in the recovery box was 60 minutes (range 10-240 minutes), being greater when the subject presents with a more serious diagnosis (infarction: 117.50 minutes).
Conclusions: age, pathology and severity of the condition of patients treated­ at the emergency recovery box are contributing factors to longer mean stay times and slow down the flow of patients. However, there are other external and internal factors that also affect these flows and affect emergency room saturation, such as the admission of less seriously ill patients and the concentration of patients at a given time range.

Keywords:

frequentation; hospital emergencies; management; patient flow; recovery boxtriage

Versión en Español

Título:

Flujo de pacientes a través del box de reanimación de un servicio de urgencias hospitalarias