Non-urgent Visits of Children with Fever at the Emergency Care and Observation Department of the Children’s Clinical University Hospital in Latvia

Background: Increasing amount of non-urgent visits is one of the major problems in European countries at the emergency medical care of European countries , with fever being the most frequent reason for these visits. In Latvia the concept of non-urgent visits is not defined.

Methods: The specific study as a retrospective, descriptive study within the framework of European Union project’s HORIZON 2020 PERFORM study MOFICHE took place from September 1, 2016 until May 31, 2017. A non-urgent visit within the study was considered to be every visit that met certain criteria based on source literature.

Results: These are preliminary results. 20% of all the emergency care department visits (except for trauma patients) were visits by patients with fever. The most frequent triage priority for febrile patients at emergency department (ED) was non-urgent or “green” – 50% of all cases on average. Before going to ED a child’s caretaker most often had complaints about fever that had lasted for less than 24 hours. Further diagnostics at ED were performed for 70% of all cases on average. Of all the febrile patient visits to ED, below 20% were non-urgent visits according to the defined criteria. Within the non-urgent patient group (compared to the rest of the ED visit group) there was a statistically significant tendency of the parents/caretakers more frequently being the ones who chose to go to ED (p<0.001).

Conclusion: Results from the study clearly indicate a necessity to perform a more in-depth and more comprehensive investigation and analysis of the non-urgent visits in order to assess and define non-urgent visits to the emergency care and observation department of Children’s Clinical University Hospital and in accordance with health care in Latvia in general. Practical recommendations are necessary for parents on how to act if a child has fever.