부산대학교 도서관

Objective: Socio-economic, demographic, cultural and environmental inequalities have been reported as determinants of non-urgent use of emergency department (ED). This study aimed to quantify the utilization characteristics of emergency department usage in Dallas County hospitals and to develop an analysis of high ED -utilizing patients using zip codes and "hot blocks". Methods: This study used out-patient ED data for 21 Dallas County hospitals from the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council Foundation's database. Spatial analysis and GIS mapping with ED data was used for high-utilizer patients was used to identify a "hot block" representing patients with the most visits. Results: In 2012, total 912,302 outpatients ED visits were made by 544,149 patients in Dallas County hospitals. In 2012, total charges for outpatient ED visits were $2,487,677,034. Based on NYU logarithm, nearly 66 percent of ED visits ideally might be treated in an outpatient venue other than the ED. "Hot spot" analysis enabled us to select zip codes representing the highest ED visits and further investigate the characteristics of those residents who were high ED utilizers. Conclusion: This study identifies characteristics associated with high ED usage in Dallas County. The study also demonstrates the value and potential public health benefits of health care data-sharing. In the future, we encourage health care data-sharing in order to coordinate care between health care and public health providers ensuring higher quality individual case management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]