Acute care planning in emergency departments

An increasing number of patients are sent home from the Danish emergency departments after very few hours for treatment in their own home or without the need for a follow-up. Recent studies show that 25% of patients and relatives consider the stay at the emergency departments fragmented and characterised by efficiency. This may leave them with a lot of questions after being sent home. This applies for both a Danish and an international context.

AIM

The PhD project has the overall aim to find out if patient care under 24 hours can be improved.

The project has three phases with the following aims:

1. Study the patients’ and relatives’ experiences with the short care course and make out which needs they wish to have fulfilled. This is done by felt observations in the department and individualistic interviews with patients and relatives. Furthermore, nurses’ and doctors’ perspective will be touched upon in the focus group interviews. The phase ended in December 2020.
2. By having innovative workshops with the users (patients, relatives, nurses, doctors et al.) there will, on a basis of data from phase 1, be worked on designing and developing an intervention. The intervention is to support the needs described by patients, relatives and health staff.
3. Test the intervention. A suitable method will be chosen when the intervention is established.

Data is collected in the Emergency Department at Odense University Hospital and the Emergency Department at Lillebaelt Hospital, Kolding.

PARTNERS

The project is a PhD project by Christina Østervang.

The Emergency Department at OUH and the Emergency Department at Lillebaelt Hospital are partners on the project, as is the University of Southern Denmark.

EXTERNAL FUNDING

The project is funded by the Region of Southern Denmark and the University of Southern Denmark.