[Prospective Study of the Health Care Utilization of a Clinic by Outpatients in a Rural Region]

Background: Medical care of emergency cases is based primarily on the so called KV-emergency service in Germany. However, it seems that hospitals are more and more frequented in such cases, which was the focus of our study. Material and Methods: The prospective study started in April 2013 and ended in March 2014. All outpatients were analyzed according several items such as personal data, the reason, time and urgency for presentation. An emergency case was defined by the patient's need of acute ENT-care. Results: All in all 11 002 patients were enrolled in this study. There were 6 463 elective cases in the regular office hours, 2 438 emergencies were treated at our department. Evaluation of the acuteness of the emergencies according to the Manchester-Triage-System demonstrated that most of the patients did not require immediate treatment. This fact is also reflected by the small number of only 10% of admissions and 18% of surgical interventions. During office hours 38% patients presented themselves as emergency and 62% cases came after official service to our department. Discussion: Especially the emergency treatment was frequently used, however the medical reasons did not justify the presentation in the majority of cases.