| The Impact of Doctors' Strike on Medical Care in the Emergency Department |
| Suk Woo Lee, Young Mo Yang, Young Rock Ha, Sung Pil Chung, In Sool Yoo, Seung Whan Kim |
1Department of Emergency Medicine, Chungnam National University Hospital, Daejeon, Korea. emfire@cnuh.co.kr
2Department of Emergency Medicine, Eulji University Hospital, Daejeon, Korea. |
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| ABSTRACT |
PURPOSE:
To evaluate the quality of the emergency medical care during doctors' strike at a hospital in Korea.
METHODS:
During a period of 7 consecutive days, from 20th to 26th June 2000, the training physicians in Korea were on strike against medical reform and the emergency medical care was provided by medical staffs without training physicians.
We drew out convenient samples by systematic allocation method and reviewed the medical records. We evaluated the patients' severities, the number of diagnostic tests and therapeutic procedures, the admission rates, and the lengths of stay at emergency department(ED) in the strike period(SP) compared to control period(NSP) from 20th to 26th June, 1999.
RESULTS:
The two groups(SP: 191 vs NSP: 202 patients) showed significant differences in the proportion of emergent patients(17.3 vs 32.7%), ED length of stay(1.98 vs 4.47 hours), the number of diagnostic tests(1.47 vs 3.92), the injection rates(17.3 vs 35.1%), and the adverse event rates(4.5 vs 6.5%).
CONCLUSION:
This study suggested that the ED administration by medical staffs without training physicians improves medical quality of emergency care. |
| Key words:
Emergency medical service, Medical staff, Strike, Employee |
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