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Abstracto

Assessment of Emergency Care Quality in Public Hospitals of Tigrai, North Ethiopia

Abera Berhe*, Ataklti Gessesse, Fana Gebreslasie, Tesfay Teklemariam and Kiros Fenta

Background: Emergency service quality is the degree to which individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes consistent with current professional knowledge. Considering the evidence gap, the study was undertaken to investigate the quality of emergency services in public hospitals of Tigrai, North Ethiopia.

Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the emergency care quality in public hospitals of Tigray region, northern Ethiopia.

Methods: Facility based cross-sectional study was employed and the study was conducted from April-June, 2019. The study assessed the emergency care quality using the main components: Availability of basic infrastructure and resources, access to basic emergency services, and patient and staff satisfaction, and waiting time to emergency care.

Results: The study revealed that the overall emergency service availability and readiness score, and access to basic emergency services score were 64% and 61%, respectively. The emergency patients and staff satisfaction scores were 60% and 65%, respectively. The average patient waiting time to emergency care in the hospitals was 8 minutes. Separate emergency examination (0%) and isolation (56.25%) rooms were rarely in use. Availability of basic medical equipment was nearly 50%. Together with lack of appropriate trainings (50%), scarcity of physicians, pharmacy (29%), and laboratory (43%) professionals were major challenges affecting the human resource of the emergency care. Hence, the laboratory, radiology and pharmacy emergency services were not providing 24 hours a day.

Conclusion: Quality of emergency service was poor and inadequately implemented when compared with the national and regional predetermined targets. Therefore, the regional health bureau should regularly monitor and address the gaps identified together with program implementers, funders and other stakeholders.