Reorganisation of acute referral to an emergency department resulted in fewer admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease but in higher rates of non-invasive ventilation.

Introduction: We performed an audit on all admissions with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in ex-acerbation to the Department of Emergency Medicine, Odense University Hospital (DEM) in the second half of 2012 to evaluate if an organisational change had altered visitation, treatment, initiation of non-invasive ventilation (NIV) and monitoring. We chose not to include the entire year to avoid data influenced by organisational start-up difficulties. The hypothesis was that NIV was initiated according to guidelines to the same extent as prior to the implementation of DEM.