Characteristics of patients who made a return visit within 72 hours to the emergency department of a Singapore tertiary hospital.

Introduction: 72-hour emergency department (ED) reattendance is a widely-used quality indicator for quality of care and patient safety. It is generally assumed that patients who return within 72 hours of ED discharge (72-hour re-attendees) received inadequate treatment or evaluation. The current literature also suggests considerable variation in probable causes of 72-hour ED reattendances internationally.