Avoidable emergency admissions: defining the concept

The transfer of end-of-life patients to hospital via admission to an emergency service mainly happens because of a lack of community support nearby and a lack of resources in palliative care.

This study aimed to define the concept of avoidable admission to an emergency department for palliative patients.

An integrative literature review was performed. The results of this were put to a panel of palliative care experts via a Delphi process to determine their consensus and agreement with the statements.

The results of the two-step Delphi process reached a high level of consensus and agreement that patients with palliative needs accompanied by home palliative care teams should not go to the emergency department. There was a low level of consensus and agreement about the appropriate admission of a patient in pain in the absence of any information about previous community support.

The findings allowed the definition of an 'avoidable emergency admission', which is an emergency admission for any symptom or condition that could be supported in a home context or primary health care, or any emergency admission that does not require immediate nursing or medical intervention, nor leads to greater comfort or quality of life for the patient.