[Minor emergency cases in big hospitals].

Our hospitals are suffering from an increasing run of "minor emergency cases". Those are simple medical or surgical ailments that could be taken care of by a general practitioner's office in a competent and cost efficient way. Because of the ever growing problem of a shortage of general practitioners, those patients are directly going to the emergency room of our hospitals, where they are usually seen by a young and yet unexperienced doctor, who is ordering an expensive battery of tests even for minor troubles of his or her wellbeing. It was shown that emergency room crowding has a negative impact on the quality of patient care. The establishment of an office run by a general practitioner within the hospital emergency room may result in a certain relief of the situation.