When many people encounter unexplained pain, they immediately want to go straight to the emergency room for help. However, after some people wait for a long time in the emergency room, the doctor "takes one look and asks to go home and rest." Therefore, they are dissatisfied and worry that the treatment is too hasty and may increase the risk of subsequent medical treatment. In this regard, a study by the University of Traditional Chinese Medicine pointed out that patients who stayed in the emergency room for a short time were less likely to go to the emergency room for medical treatment within 3 days.
To understand whether a patient's stay in the emergency department is related to the risk of subsequent worsening of symptoms, the team at the University of Traditional Chinese Medicine analyzed 28,803 adult patients who came to the emergency department for uncomplicated, non-traumatic abdominal pain between 2021 and 2023.
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The study analysis found that patients who stayed in the emergency room for less than 96 minutes had a significantly lower rate of returning to the emergency room within 72 hours and a rate of hospitalization after return than patients who stayed in the emergency room for more than 210 minutes. This shows that accelerating the emergency treatment process will not increase the risk of patients returning to the emergency room for help in the future, and this effect may be related to the optimization of clinical workflow and the application of real-time bedside ultrasound in recent years.
Therefore, the research team believes that patients whose symptoms cannot be resolved immediately and whose causes are difficult to diagnose at the moment usually require more examinations and evaluations and therefore stay in the emergency department for a longer time. They should not mistakenly believe that the chance of staying in the emergency department longer and returning home will be lower. In the future, efforts should be made to develop external validation and clinical decision-making tools to effectively identify patients who are suitable for safe and early discharge.
Wei Zhiwei, director of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Children's General Hospital, believes that medical care in Taiwan is very convenient. Many people want to go to the emergency room when they feel unwell. However, the symptoms themselves are not serious enough to require emergency treatment. However, emergency doctors may be busy with other emergency cases at the moment. Mild patients are advised to go home immediately after a long wait and evaluation. Some people will have a sense of gap in their psychological expectations and feel that they are being treated carelessly.
Wei Zhiwei said that patients who really stay in the emergency room for more than 2 to 3 hours usually need to cooperate with other imaging tests to clarify the cause of the disease. Other patients who can leave the emergency room within 90 minutes usually do not have too serious conditions, and most people can accept it after the doctor explains it. "I think everyone does not need to rush to curse themselves. It is a good thing that the doctor can complete the evaluation quickly."
However, Wei Zhiwei mentioned that emergency doctors and patients may only meet once in a lifetime, and there is no way to build trust through long-term interactions like outpatient doctors. In addition, they are busy and may have just dealt with critically ill patients, which can easily give patients the impression of being impatient and harsh. Therefore, the trust between doctors and patients is weak. Even if they become health education doctors, there is no guarantee that disputes will arise later.
Wei Zhiwei gave an example. A few days ago, a child with influenza came to the emergency room for help. After the doctor evaluated the patient, he asked the patient to return home to recuperate. However, he became unconscious a day later and returned to the emergency room for medical treatment and was diagnosed with acute encephalitis. This type of disease itself has unpredictable characteristics, so we can only remind patients or their families through health education. "But the overall medical environment makes it impossible for us to face patients calmly. Otherwise, we would like to do health education in a friendly manner."
