What is a health emergency? The difference in definition and understanding between patients and health professionals

Background. Investigations into 'inappropriate' use of emergency health services are limited by the lack of definition of what constitutes a health emergency. Position papers from Australian and international sources emphasise the patient's right to access emergency healthcare, and the responsibility of emergency health care workers to provide treatment to all patients. However, discordance between the two perspectives remain, with literature labelling patient use of emergency health services as 'inappropriate'. Objective. To define a 'health emergency' and compare patient and health professionals perspectives. Method. A sample of 600 emergency department (ED) patients were surveyed about a recent health experience and asked to rate their perceived urgency. This rating was compared to their triage score allocated at the hospital ED. Results. No significant relationship was found between the two ratings of urgency (P = 0.51). Conclusions. Differing definitions of a 'health emergency' may explain patient help-seeking behaviour when accessing emergency health resources including hospital ED and ambulance services. A new definition of health emergency that encapsulates the health professional and patient perspectives is proposed. An agreed definition of when emergency health resources should be used has the potential to improve emergency health services demand and patient flow issues, and optimise emergency health resource allocation.