Open AccessWhat Will be the Percentage Drop in Attendance of Accident & Emergency Department after Implementation of Charges?
Author(s) -
Chan JTS
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
hong kong journal of emergency medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.145
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 2309-5407
pISSN - 1024-9079
DOI - 10.1177/102490790100800409
Subject(s) - attendance , medicine , accident and emergency , drop (telecommunication) , medical emergency , emergency medicine , engineering , electrical engineering , economics , economic growth
The attendance of Accident & Emergency (A&E) departments in Hong Kong increased from 1.1 million in 1990 to 2.3 million in 2000. The statistics of Hospital Authority showed that about 75% of the attendance belonged to the semi‐urgent or non‐urgent cases. It is expected that the A&E attendance will drop after implementation of A&E charges. A cross‐sectional study was done using the database of a typical medium size A&E department in Hong Kong to analyse this impact. The result of statistical analysis showed that there would be about 30% drop in A&E attendance. Other factors, however could affect the results and these were discussed. After adjustment, it was concluded that there would be about 20% drop in attendance after the implementation of A&E charges.