Observational studyBMJ open2019
Differences between cases admitted to hospital and discharged from the emergency department after emergency medical services transport.
Observational study in BMJ open, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- [Predictability of patient disposition from emergency medical services triage categories: exploratory analysis of routine data].Medizinische Klinik, Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin · 2026Article
- Treatment variability among low-acuity EMS patients in a university hospital ED: a retrospective registry study from Southwest Finland.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Hospital admissions following emergency medical services in Germany: analysis of 2 million hospital cases in 2022.Medizinische Klinik, Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin · 2025Article
- A Novel Artificial Intelligence-Enhanced Digital Network for Prehospital Emergency Support: Community Intervention Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- [Pediatric emergency patients in the emergency departments of a German metropolitan region : A retrospective cross-sectional study over a one-year period].Medizinische Klinik, Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin · 2024Article
- Prehospital misdiagnosis of acute cerebral disease for acute coronary syndrome: a retrospective study.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2022Article
- Article
- [Challenges of digitalization in trauma care].Der Unfallchirurg · 2020Review
- Non-specific diagnoses are frequent in patients hospitalized after calling 112 and their mortality is high - a register-based Danish cohort study.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveRising emergency medical services (EMS) utilisation increases transport to hospital emergency departments (ED). However, some patients receive outpatient treatment (discharged) while others are hospitalised (admitted). The aims of this analysis were to compare admitted and discharged cases, to assess whether cases that were discharged from the ED could be identified using dispatch data and to compare dispatch keyword categories and hospital diagnoses.
designRetrospective observational study using linked secondary data. SETTING AND
participants78 303 cases brought to 1 of 14 ED in the city of Munich, Germany, by EMS between 1 July 2013 and 30 June 2014.
main outcome measuresCharacteristics of admitted and discharged cases were assessed. Logistic regression was used to estimate the association between discharge and age, sex, time of day, ambulance type and dispatch keyword category. Keyword categories were compared to hospital diagnoses.
results39.4% of cases were discharged. They were especially likely to be young (OR 10.53 (CI 9.31 to 11.92), comparing <15-year-olds to >70-year-olds) and to fall under the categories 'accidents/trauma' (OR 2.87 (CI 2.74 to 3.01)) or 'other emergencies (unspecified)' (OR 1.23 (CI 1.12 to 1.34) (compared with 'cardiovascular'). Most frequent diagnoses came from chapter 'injury and poisoning' (30.1%) of the 10th revision of the international statistical classification of disease and related health problems (ICD-10), yet these diagnoses were more frequent at discharge (42.7 vs 22.0%) whereas circulatory system disease was less frequent (2.6 vs 21.8%). Except for accidents/trauma and intoxication/poisoning many underlying diagnoses were observed for the same dispatch keyword.
conclusionYoung age and dispatch for accidents or trauma were the strongest predictors of discharge. Even within the same dispatch keyword category the distribution of diagnoses differed between admitted and discharged cases. Discharge from the ED does not indicate that urgent response was unnecessary. However, these cases could be suitable for allocation to hospitals with low inpatient bed capacities and are of particular interest for future studies regarding the urgency of their condition.
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