Muhammad Tauseef Javed, Areej Fatima, Syma Arshad, Amna Iqbal Butt, Hamna Mazhar, Muhammad Shahid Iqbal.
Patient referral trail and fate of patients referred to surgical and medical emergency department of services hospital, Lahore.
J Sharif Med Dent Coll Jan ;3(02):67-71.

Objective: To assess the formal referral system and the fate of patients referred to Emergency Department of Services Hospital, Lahore. Methodology: It was a cross-sectional study conducted in Surgical and Medical Emergency Department of Services Hospital, Lahore. The sample size was estimated by WHO statistical software S size using the formula for estimating a population proportion with specified related precision. At confidence level of 95%, anticipated population proportion of referred patient is 50% and relative precision of 10%. The sample size is 129. A detailed structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The data was analyzed by making tables, estimating their frequencies and percentages. Results: The study assessed the referral system and fate of 129 patients coming to Surgical and Medical Emergency Department. Out of 129 patients, 10.9% reported to Basic Health Care Units (BHUS), 14.7% reported to Rural Health Care Centers (RHCs), 14.7% reported from District Headquarter (DHQ) Hospital and 59.7% were referred by private clinics or hospitals. Out of these patients, 1.6% were referred by dispensers, 5.4%by lady health workers (LHWs), 24.8% by house officers, 56.6% by medical officers and 11.6% by consultants. Regarding the fate of these patients, 91.5% patients were still admitted, 7.0% were discharged and 1.6% left against medical advice. Conclusion: Majority of the patients were referred by private sector clinics or hospitals. The main reason for referring a patient is lack of availability of specialist doctors at their available healthcare facility. Health personnel carrying out referrals are not trained to recognize problems that can be treated at their health facility centers. Necessary steps to make patients utilize primary and secondary health facilities need to be put in place, so that only serious patients are screened out for tertiary care facilities. Keywords: BHU. RHC. DHQ. Patient referral. Services Hospital, Lahore

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