MODELLING OUTCOMES OF AMBULATORY EMERGENCY CARE (AEC) DECISION-MAKING

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Modelling outcomes of ambulatory emergency care (AEC) decision-making in urgent medical care

• IRAS ID

  275148

• Contact name

  Nicola irvine

• Contact email

  nicola.irvine@strath.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Strathclyde, Research & Knowledge Exchange Services (RKES)

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 4 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  This research explores how decisions to manage a patient’s urgent care problem via an out-patient pathway affects an urgent care department and patient satisfaction of care. Ambulatory emergency care (AEC) is the practice of managing urgent health concerns whilst safely avoiding admission to hospital. This is traditionally delivered in an acute assessment unit – an urgent care facility in the hospital where GPs and emergency department (ED) team send patients potentially requiring hospital admission – allowing patient to receive attention for their health without being exposed to the potential harms of hospital stays and in a more focused manner. It can be challenging to identify which patients are suitable in time to make this difference and often this is determined at the time of referral by a less experience member of staff

  My research theorises that if this decision can be made safely by an expert in this field of care at the point that the patient is referred into the of system, it will allow patients to be managed in different areas according to their need leading to improvements in the following ways:
  - Improved patient satisfaction through advanced knowledge of care pathway
  - Reduced delays to initiate care as bottlenecks are prevented through redirection
  - Reduced crowding in the urgent care as pathways are more efficient
  - Greater number of patients managed via AEC and avoiding hospital admission

  It is important to study if/how the grade of the person making this decision with the referring team and patient has an impact on these outcomes as this allow hospitals and urgent care departments to plan and organise their services to deliver preferred outcomes effectively. I will do this through the creation of a computer simulation model which reproduced the urgent care environment the perform virtual experiments that can be analysed without disrupting everyday patient care.
  

• REC name

  London - Surrey Borders Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  20/PR/0574

• Date of REC Opinion

  2 Oct 2020

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion