J Korean Soc Emerg Med.
1997 Jun;8(2):172-178.
Critical care in Emergency Department
Abstract
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STUDY OBJECT: To date, the study of critical illness in the emergency department has been limited. The purpose of this study was to determine the length of stay and procedures performed on critical care patient in ED, and to be help to establish Emergency physicians' education program.
METHOD: We reviewed patient's medical record, who visited ED, Korea Univ. Hospital from Jan. 1996 to Jun. 1996 and admitted to ICU. We analyzed data to age, sex, clinical diagnosis, length of stay, and critical procedures in ED.
RESULTS
The 12,721 patients visited ED during the study period, the 441 of 12,721 (3.50%) patients admitted to ICU. 56 patients were excluded whose medical re cords were incomplete. The study populations consisted of 165 women and 220 men. The mean age were 52 year old (median,58 year old). The mean length of stays were 606.1 (1445.9 minutes (median, 180 minutes)). One hundred sixty one of these patients (41.8 %) received one or more critical procedures. The medical critical patients were 252 cases, and surgical critical patients were 133 cases. The mean length of stay of medical critical patients was 738.8 (1748.9 minutes (median, 177.5 minutes)) in medical department,44.0% of them received critical procedures in ED. The surgical critical patients averaged 354.9 (410.7 minutes (median, 190 minutes)) and 37.6% received critical procedures.
CONCLUSION
Critical ill patients stay in the ED with a substantial amount of time, before addition to the ICU. Critical ill patients who have hemodynamiccal unstable conditions, compromised cardiopulmonary functions, and neurologic deficities, were managed in ED frequently. Typical critical care procedures are commonly performed by emergency physicians. Therefore, it is important for emergency physician to prepare to critical ill patients.
