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Linking Emergency Department Patients to Primary Care: Phone vs Face‐to‐face Interaction
Author(s) -
Kallis Jean Marie,
Gonzalez DEL Rey Javier A.,
Ruddy Richard M.,
Schubert Charles J.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
academic emergency medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.221
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1553-2712
pISSN - 1069-6563
DOI - 10.1111/j.1553-2712.1999.tb01213.x
Subject(s) - medicine , emergency department , phone , face to face , observational study , emergency medicine , population , primary care , family medicine , phone call , medical emergency , pediatrics , nursing , linguistics , philosophy , environmental health , epistemology
. Objective: To compare the patient compliances and time analyses of two methods of assigning primary care providers (PCPs) to ED patients who are without a PCP: phone interview vs face‐to‐face interaction. Methods: Prospective observational cohort study following an intervention, performed in a pediatric ED, serving a population of 1.7 million, with a census of 80,000 pediatric ED visits per year. Over one year, a consecutive sampling of 1,062 patients evaluated in the ED and without a PCP were approached to participate in our study (536 enrolled, 526 declined). Patients enrolled were addressed by a nurse practitioner/social worker (NP/SW) who arranged an appointment with a PCP, either in person (in ED) or by phone after discharge. The primary outcome measure was compliance with the arranged appointment. Secondarily, the authors analyzed the time necessary for each approach in person‐hours. Results: Of the 536 enrolled, 81 were excluded because data collection was incomplete at the time of the study's completion, leaving 455 study patients. Seventy‐six percent of the study patients were between the ages of 1 month and 12 years. Contact was made by phone for 151 (33%) patients and face‐to‐face for 304 (67%). Sixty‐two percent of the phone patients kept their appointments, compared with 52% of face‐to‐face patients (p = 0.048, RR = 1.20, 1.02 < RR < 1.41). Phone interaction was also more time effective. Conclusions: Linking ED patients without a medical provider to PCPs via phone is as effective as a face‐to‐face interaction.