When Chronic Conditions Become Emergencies - a Report from Regional Queensland

Objective: To describe chronic conditions and injuries as a proportion of total emergency presentations to a large public hospital in regional Queensland, and to investigate differences in presentation rates associated with Indigenous status.

Design: Cross-sectional analysis using Emergency Department Information System data between 1 July 2012 and 30 June 2014.

Setting: Regional Queensland, Australia.

Participants: A total of 95 238 emergency presentations were generated by 50 083 local residents living in the 10 statistical local areas (SLAs) immediately around the hospital.

Main Outcome Measures: Emergency presentations for chronic conditions and injuries identified from discharge ICD-10-AM principal diagnosis. Age-standardised presentation rates were calculated using the Australian 2001 reference population.

Results: Approximately half of all presentations were for chronic conditions (20.2%) and injuries (28.8%). Two-thirds of all chronic condition presentations were for mental and behavioural disorders (34.6%) and circulatory diseases (33.2%). Head injuries accounted for the highest proportion of injuries (18.9%). Age-standardised rates for major diagnostic groups were consistently higher for Indigenous residents, whose presentations were lower in mean age (95% CI) by 7.7 (7.3-8.1) years, 23% less likely to be potentially avoidable GP-type presentations [RR (95% CI) = 0.77 (0.75-0.80)], 30% more likely to arrive by ambulance [1.31 (1.28-1.33)] and 11% more likely to require hospital admission [1.11 (1.08-1.13)].

Conclusions: Opportunities exist to enhance current coordinated hospital avoidance and primary health services in regional Queensland targeting common mental and circulatory disorders, especially for Indigenous Australians.