Cross-sectional study in an out-of-hours primary care centre in northwestern Germany - patient characteristics and the urgency of their treatment.

Background: Due to the increasing number of non-urgent visits to emergency departments, it is becoming increasingly important to also investigate emergency care in out-of-hours (OOH) primary care. The aim of this study was to provide an insight into the care structures of an OOH primary care centre, to evaluate the reasons for encounter (RFE) and to assess the urgency of the treatment from the physicians´ point of view.

Methods: In the summer of 2017, we conducted a cross-sectional study over four weeks in the OOH primary care centre of Oldenburg, a city in Lower Saxony with about 160,000 inhabitants.