[Quick and early diagnostic outpatient unit: an effective and efficient assistential model. Five years experience]

To analyze the applicability of an out-patient Quick and Early Diagnostic Unit (QEDU) to evaluate patients with a potential life-threatening disorder on an out-patient basis.

We analyzed prospectively all patients attended in the unit for five years (1997-2001). We compared patients with lung cancer and colorectal cancer admitted to hospital for conventional study versus patients studied at the unit.

We attended 2,748 patients in total Main reasons for consultation were abdominal pain, asthenia-anorexia, neurologic symptoms, anemia and palpable tumors. The most frequent diagnostic category corresponded to gastroenterological diseases and neoplastic diseases. The mean interval (standard error) for the first visit was 4.9 (3.4) days and for diagnosis it was 5.7 (6.5) days. Some 95% patients displayed a high degree of satisfaction by the questionnaire. In patients with cancer of the colon studied at the QEDU, we observed a reduction in the average interval for diagnosis which was highly significant (p = 0.03). The overall costs of final diagnosis were also lower for the QEDU model.

The QEDU unit represents an alternative to in hospital admission for diagnostic workouts, which is fully feasible in our setting. It can result in the same efficacy and a higher efficiency than hospital admission.