Structural quality criteria of emergency departments in Vienna

In 2020, the Austrian Association of Emergency Medicine proposed structural quality criteria for in-hospital emergency care in Austria. However, it has not yet been assessed how these criteria apply to existing emergency departments.

All in-hospital emergency departments across Vienna were surveyed using a structured assessment based on published proposed structural quality criteria. A total of 54 criteria were analysed, each rated on a scale of 3 (comprehensive care), 2 (standard care), 1 (basic care), or 0 (not met).

Among 16 hospitals, we identified 10 emergency departments. The scores ranged from 87 points (54%) to 151 points (95%). None of the departments met all structural quality criteria. Overall, across all emergency departments, 69% of the criteria aligned with comprehensive care, 7% with standard care and 3% with basic care, while 21% of the criteria were not met at all.

A set of proposed structural quality criteria for emergency departments could be quantitatively assessed. While the published criteria and the observed infrastructure are largely consistent, there is significant potential for improvement in both the definition of the criteria and the criteria per se. The extent to which these structural quality criteria are useful for assessing the classification of tiered care models requires further studies in different regions.