Modelling seasonal variations in presentations at a paediatric emergency department.

Modelling seasonal variations in presentations at a paediatric emergency department. Hiroshima J Med Sci. 2012 Sep;61(3):51-8 Authors: Takase M, Carlin J Abstract Overcrowding is a phenomenon commonly observed at emergency departments (EDs) in many hospitals, and negatively impacts patients, healthcare professionals and organisations. Health care organisations are expected to act proactively to cope with a high patient volume by understanding and predicting the patterns of ED presentations. The aim of this study was, therefore, to identify the patterns of patient flow at a paediatric ED in order to assist the management of EDs. Data for ED presentations were collected from the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, with the time-frame of July 2003 to June 2008. A linear regression analysis with trigonometric functions was used to identify the pattern of patient flow at the ED. The results showed that a logarithm of the daily average ED presentations was increasing exponentially (as explained by 0.004t + 0.00005t2 with t representing time, p<0.001). The model also indicated that there was a yearly oscillation in the frequency of ED presentations, in which lower frequencies were observed in summer and higher frequencies during winter (as explained by -0.046 sin(2(pi)t/12)-0.083 cos(2(pi)t/12), p<0.001). In addition, the variation of the oscillations was increasing over time (as explained by -0.002t*sin(2(pi)t/12)-0.00...
Source: Hiroshima Journal of Medical Sciences - Category: Journals (General) Tags: Hiroshima J Med Sci Source Type: research