Interventions in overcrowding of emergency departments: an overview of systematic reviews



Document title: Interventions in overcrowding of emergency departments: an overview of systematic reviews
Journal: Revista de saude publica
Database:
System number: 000535950
ISSN: 0034-8910
Authors: 1
1
1
1
2
Institutions: 1Secretaria de Estado de Saúde do Distrito Federal, Fundação de Ensino e Pesquisa em Ciências da Saúde, Distrito Federal. Brasil
2Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sérgio Arouca, Rio de Janeiro. Brasil
Year:
Volumen: 54
Country: Brasil
Language: Inglés
English abstract OBJECTIVE To present an overview of systematic reviews on throughput interventions to solve the overcrowding of emergency departments. METHODS Electronic searches for reviews published between 2007 and 2018 were made on PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Health Systems Evidence, CINAHL, SciELO, LILACS, Google Scholar and the CAPES periodicals portal. Data of the included studies was extracted into a pre-formatted sheet and their methodological quality was assessed using AMSTAR 2 tool. Eventually, 15 systematic reviews were included for the narrative synthesis. RESULTS The interventions were grouped into four categories: (1) strengthening of the triage service; (2) strengthening of the ED’s team; (3) creation of new care zones; (4) change in ED’s work processes. All studies observed positive effect on patient’s length of stay, expect for one, which had positive effect on other indicators. According to AMSTAR 2 criteria, eight revisions were considered of high or moderate methodological quality and seven, low or critically low quality. There was a clear improvement in the quality of the studies, with an improvement in focus and methodology after two decades of systematic studies on the subject. CONCLUSIONS Despite some limitations, the evidence presented on this overview can be considered the cutting edge of current scientific knowledge on the topic.
Keyword: Emergency Service, Hospital,
Hospital Administration,
Systematic Review
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