Which unscheduled return visits indicate a quality-of-care issue?

Background: The rate of unscheduled return visits is often used as a quality-of-care indicator in EDs, although its validity is not yet fully established. Our aim was to identify the characteristics of return visits that may be attributed to problems in quality of care.

Methods: Retrospective paired review of medical charts in a random sample of return visits during the 72 hours following discharge from the ED in three hospitals of Andalusia, Spain in 2013.

[Causes of 72-hour return visits to hospital emergency departments].

Objectives: The return-visit rate has been suggested as a measure of emergency department quality of care. We aimed to identify the reasons for emergency revisits and the percentage of returns related to problems with quality of care in the previous visit.

Material And Methods: Cross-sectional observational study of clinical records for a random sample of unscheduled returns within 72 hours of discharge from the emergency departments of 3 hospitals attending a population of nearly 3 million in the Spanish province of Malaga.