Emergency department complaints: a ten-year review

This 10-year (May 1986-31 December 1995) retrospective study was done to analyse the types of complaints received by the National University Hospital's Emergency Department (NUH EMD), so as to take remedial measures. It was done by reviewing three sources of complaints received by the department, namely formal written complaints, verbal feedback received by the Corporate Affairs Department, and via feedback forms. The areas of complaints looked for included the nature, number, validity, whether remediable and triage priority of the patients. One hundred and eighty-eight subcategories of complaints were received from 169 complaints. The complaint frequency was 0.26 per 1,000 visits or 1 complaint per 3,846 visits. The complaint frequency over the 10 years did not vary much (range 0 to 0.44). Most of the complaints are divided into 4 broad categories ie medical, doctor-patient/paramedical staff-patient relationship, patient flow/logistics at EMD and in-house complaints. The majority (71.3%) of the complaints were due to medical and doctor-patient relationship problems. Complaints tend to arise from Priority 2 and 3 rather than Priority 1 patients. 33.7% of the complaints were considered valid, 21.6% not valid while in the remaining 44.7%, validity could not be determined. 48.4% of complaints were likely to be remediable. Based on this study, we have since instituted a compulsory emergency department-driven "Customer Service Training Programme" and weekly teaching sessions for each incoming group of medical officers posted to the NUH EMD.