The emergency room at the Rotunda Hospital: evidence of an improving service over the past 3 years

Abstract

Introduction

This is a retrospective review of the Rotunda Hospital Emergency Room (ER) documentation with respect to attendances for a 4-month period (August–November) in both 2009 and 2012. The aim was to quantify the workload and assess the quality of care offered to patients attending the ER over the two time periods and to highlight any improvements in care after changes were implemented following the initial 2009 review.

Materials and methods

This study was done comparing the ER  patient attendances over two time periods (1st August 2009 to 30th November 2009 and same period in 2012). SPSS version 20 was used to make statistical analysis along with simple percentage calculation. Comparing the two time frames, a decrease in the number of antenatal patients attending ER was seen (p < 0.001) [7,128 (91.0 %) in 2009 and 6,890 (89.4 %) in 2012], waiting times fell (p < 0.001) [4,351 (55.5 %) in 2009 seen within 2 h and 5,855 (76.2 %) in 2012], less women left ER without being seen (p < 0.001) [151 (1.9 %) in 2009 and 119 (1.5 %) in 2012] and record keeping regarding outcome of attendances improved (p < 0.001) [465 cases (5.9 %) in 2009 not recorded and 259 (3.3 %) in 2012].

Conclusion

The improvements noted may be due to establishment of an early pregnancy assessment unit facility and changes in ER staffing. Two registrars being on-call rather than one registrar. Increased numbers of gynaecology patients (p < 0.001) [334 (4.3 %) in 2009 and 463 (6 %) in 2012] were seen, most likely due to changes in benign gynaecology services in north Dublin. All the comparisons were statistically significant.