Evaluation of problems encountered by emergency physicians during consultation process in the emergency department

Objectives: Consultation plays a significant role in the management of patients in the emergency department. During this process a consulting physician from another speciality is requested to assist in the management and care of a patient in the emergency department. Most oftenly this results in patients being admitted for further evaluation by the respective departments. If done properly consultation oftens results in better patient care, reduction of overcrowding and patient length of stay in the emergency department and minimizing costs encountered during patient care. Delays in response to consultation may be due to specific barriers such shortage of physicians, lack of proper finance and failure to establish proper rules regarding the consultation procedure. The main purpose of this study is to highlight the importance of consultation and examine the problems encountered by emergency physicians during the process of consultation in the emergency departments in hospitals across Turkey. Methods: We prepared a questionnaire consisting of 22 questions about different problems encountered during the consultation process. The questionnaire was delivered by e-posta, sosyal media and by direct communication to physicians working in emergency departments in different hospitals across Turkey. The results collected were then analysed by Microsoft Office Excel 365 ve SPSS 17.0 packet program. Results: The questionnaire was conducted between 14.04.2017 and 12.06.2017 and a total of 307 responses were collected. Most of the responses collected were from specialists working in different research hospitals all over Turkey. According to the results collected from the questionnaire the time of the day that presented most problems was between 24:00 and 08:00 (67.1%), the departments presenting most problems were chest infections (46.6%), internal medicine (35.5%), obstetrics and gynecology (31.6%), neurology (30%) and genel surgey (28.3%). More problems were encountered during weekends (76.2%) than weekdays (38.1%). The type of difficulties encountered mostly were consulting physicians requesting consultations from other specialities (71.7%), patients who were supposed to be admitted being kept waiting in the emergency departments because of different reasons (68.1%) and consulting physicians requesting more tests that were not necessary at the moment (51.8%). Conclusion: Consultation is an important process in the emergency department. In order to minimize the problems encountered during consultation both the emergency physician and the consulting physician must be educated to fully understand the process of consultation and strict hospital policies be established both to guide physician and also help solve interphysician conflicts that may arise during the consultation procedure. Keywords: consultation, emergency physician, consulting physician.