PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Cai lei Matsumoto
AU  - Teresa O’Driscoll
AU  - Sharen Madden
AU  - Brittany Blakelock
AU  - Jennifer Lawrance
AU  - Len Kelly
TI  - Defining “high-frequency” emergency department use
DP  - 2017 Sep 01
TA  - Canadian Family Physician
PG  - e395--e399
VI  - 63
IP  - 9
4099  - http://www.cfp.ca/content/63/9/e395.short
4100  - http://www.cfp.ca/content/63/9/e395.full
SO  - Can Fam Physician2017 Sep 01; 63
AB  - Objective To suggest a functional definition for identification of “high-frequency” emergency department (ED) users in rural areas.Design Retrospective analysis of secondary data.Setting Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre in northwestern Ontario.Participants All ED visitors (N = 7121) in 2014 (N = 17 911 visits) in one rural hospital.Main outcome measures The number of patients and visits identified using different definitions of high-frequency use.Results By using the most common definition of high-frequency use (≥ 4 annual visits) for our hospital data, we identified 16.7% of ED patients. Using 6 or more annual visits as the definition, we identified 7.9% of ED patients; these patients accounted for 31.3% of the ED visit workload. Using the definition of 6 or more identifies less than 10% of the patients, which is a similar result to using the lower visit standard (≥ 4) in urban centres.Conclusion We suggest that the definition for high-frequency visitors to a rural ED should be 6 or more annual visits. Other useful subsets might include very high-frequency users (12 to 19 annual visits) and super users (≥ 20 annual visits).