Patienters oplevelser af behandlingen på Akutafdelingen

Background: The objective of the establishments of the Emergency Departments (ED) in Denmark is to optimize patient treatment. We want to see if the efforts in the ED have an effect on how patients perceive quality. This working paper describes patients' experiences in the beginning of the process, and then we compare the results with the Danish National Survey of Patient Experiences (LUP). Design/Methods: The study is based on a survey. The questionnaire contained 15 questions, included some related to LUP, supplemented by departmentspecific questions. The study was initiated in 2009 comprising 12 weeks. The inclusion criteria were as follows: patient seeking ED; 18 years old or older; oriented to person, place and time. Patient had to be triaged as orange, yellow or green and admitted to the ED for a minimum of two hours. Data are compared with the cumulative data from the LUP in the same year. Chisquare (chi2) is used for significance testing and a confidence interval of 95 % is used. Results: 383 patients participated in the study (193 men, 190 women, mean age 64 years). The response rate was 64 %. The patients were highly satisfied with the treatment at the ED (73,3 % versus 36,1 % in LUP) despite the fact that 40,9 % experienced delays at the arrival at the ED, 22,5 % experienced delays in treatment and 21,3 % reported that they didn´t receive any information about the length of any given waiting time. This corresponds to the experience nationwide in the LUP. Patients in this study experienced fewer errors (medication errors 1,3 % versus 6,2 % in LUP, injury occurred during examination / surgery / treatment 0,5 % versus 5,2 % in LUP) compared to LUP nationwide. Side 2 Of the departmentspecific questions, it appears that staff was approachable, 98,4 % answered yes, 76, 5% got the information they needed, and 77,8 % felt consistency of information between staff members. 85,8 % were confident to be discharged after a maximum 24 hours of hospitalization.