24-hour home emergency call service organized by a hospital emergency department: a descriptive study

Guil Sánchez J, Rodríguez-Martín M, Pedrol Clotet E

Objective: Hospital General de Granollers attends emergencies in patients’ homes on a

continuous basis. We studied the types of emergencies attended and, secondarily, the

response time, percentage of patients referred to the hospital emergency service, and

the number of problems or conflicts that arose.

Methods: Prospective study from January through December 2008 to determine the

number of calls and their characteristics.

Results: In 2008 the hospital’s home emergency service attended 1131 calls (mean

3.09/d). On 121 days analyzed in detail, 359 home emergencies were attended (31.7%

of the annual total; mean, 2.97/d). The patients were female in 65.7% of the cases. The

mean age of the patients was 67.73 years, with ages distributed as follows: < 20 years, 1.1%; 20-39 years, 15.3%; 40-59 years, 13.6%; 60-79 years, 29%; and >80 years,

40.9%. Infections were the reason for 37,9% of the calls, followed by trauma (10.31%)

and gastrointestinal complaints (9.5%). The most frequent diagnosis was upper airway

infection (12%). Ambulances took the patient to the hospital emergency service in 5%

of the cases. Few problems arose: 6 were related to finding the address and 1 involved

verbal attacks.

Conclusions: Most of the emergency patients attended at home were women. Patients

over 80 years old made up the largest age group. Infections were the most frequent

reason for home emergency service attendance and the medical problems were not

serious. Problems and conflicts were rare.

Guil Sánchez J, Pedrol Clotet E, Rodríguez-Martín M