Workload of the emergency room neurologists and the neurological inpatient department in a Greek tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Background: Data concerning the number of patients presenting to the emergency room (ER) and the workload in the departments in the European Union countries are scarce. In contrast to most European practice, Greek public hospitals in cities with more than one public health facilities are on-call not on a daily, but on a rotational basis. Exact data from Greece on the number of patients referred to the ER or the number of patients admitted to regular inpatient departments of the public hospitals under these conditions is lacking.

Patients and methods: From February 1st, 2006 to January 31st, 2007, we performed an open prospective study on the workload at the ER as well as the inpatient department of the Neurological Clinic of Papageorgiou General Hospital in Thessaloniki, Greece. In addition, we performed an analysis of the number of inpatient admission to the Department of Neurology per trimester from January 1st, 2002 until March 31st, 2008.

Results: During the study period, a total of 5901 patients required neurological examination in the ER (8.75% of all ER patients). In parallel, 2054 patients were admitted to the neurological ward for hospitalization exceeding 24h with a mean hospitalization of 3.95 days.

Conclusion: These data suggest that the workload of a tertiary care neurological in- and outpatient department is large. More research is needed to determine the impact this has on patient outcomes.