Abstract

The extended medical insurance system has resulted in increasing numbers of patients who go directly to specialists in the general hospitals via consultation of general practice physicians in local clinics as well as on the patient's own decision. In order to classify and evaluate the. patients, who come to the emergency room of the general hospital, whether the patients disease status. truely needed emergency treatment or whether the patients were treated adequately or not at the emergency room, we reviewed retrospectively 3.775 patients who came to the emergency room of Kang Nam St, Mary's Hospital between January and July 1984. We classified them according to their age, sex, department. the status of disease(emergency or not) and evaluated the adequacy of emergency treatment and the prognosis. We conclued as follows; 1) Every emergency room should be prepared with adequate equipment and operated by sufficient numbers of well trained medical personnel. 2) It is necessary that the medical personnel who work at the emergency room should be continuously educated and trained for adequate care of the patients with centraI nervous system, respiratory system, gastrointestinal system and cardiovascular system problems. 3) Our review revealed that it seems necessary that the specialists in emergency care, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation, should be stationed at emergency room. 4) For the more efficient operation of the emergency room, the establishment of a medical delivery system is necessary.