Relationship Between the Length of Stay in Emergency Departments and Clinical Outcomes of Head Trauma

Length of stay is necessary when discussing health care and cost reduction. There is a complex relationship between hospitalization in the emergency department and the outcomes of patients transferred to the ICU. This study aimed to determine the relationship between the length of stay in the emergency department and the results in head trauma patients. This retrospective analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on 257 patient files selected from 3810 cases from a medical center in Iran over five years. The data included personal and clinical information of the patients. The primary outcomes indicated that cardiopulmonary resuscitation (31.77%, n=88) and mortality (31.41%, n=87) had occurred the most. The mean, standard deviation, and median of the duration of intubation were 10.6±8.2 and 8.4 days. The three mentioned values were 10.4±8.5 and 7.8 days for the length of stay in the ICU and 16.1±11.5 and 12.4 days for the length of hospital stay. Moreover, results indicated that the patients who stayed a shorter time in the trauma emergency department had a shorter duration of intubation and hospital stay. Length of stay in the emergency department is related to the primary and secondary clinical outcomes. Treatment time for patients with trauma in the emergency department should be minimal.