Acute referral of patients from general practitioners: should the hospital doctor or a nurse receive the call?

Table 2 Action and outcome of the assessment of patients for emergency admission

Action	physician assessment	%	nurse assessment	%	p-value
redirected to physician/specialist (% of all)	-		83*	(16)
immediate admissions	315	(74)	350	(68)	0.15
plan for admission within next 24 hours	6	(1)	3	(1)	0.31
redirected to another specialist	8	(2)	21	(4)	0.06
redirected to another hospital	7	(1)	41	(8)	< 0.0001
redirected to the urgent out patient clinic	32	(7)	0	(0)	n.c.
redirected to the non-urgent out patient clinic	36	(8)	12	(2)	< 0.0001
counselling/rejection of admission	24	(7)	1	(0)	n.c.
Outcome
unnecessary admissions	18/306	(6)	25/367	(7)	0.62
correct assessment according to catchment area	190/272	(70)	276/355	(78)	0.03
rejected patients admitted within 48 hours**	10/41	(24)	0	(0)	n.c.
median time (minutes) spend on assessment (IQR)***	2	(2-3)	1	(1-2)	< 0.0001

* 51% of these were immediately admitted ** patients rejected or redirected to non-urgent out patient clinic. *** ortopaedic and vascular patients excluded.

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