Evaluation of Emergency Care Practitioners

Title of study:

A controlled observational study of the clinical and cost effectiveness of emergency care practitioners

Funders:

Department of Health

Staff:

Sue Mason, Lead Investigator
Colin O´Keeffe, Project Manager
Pat Coleman, Research Fellow

Study design:

• Controlled observational study involving a patient survey of experiences with either an ECP or standard service
• Telephone interviews with ECPs, health care professionals and local stakeholders
• An economic evaluation of the ECP schemes

Objectives:

• To evaluate 3 ECP Schemes compared with previously existing emergency service models in order to evaluate:
  - Patient satisfaction and acceptability
  - Subsequent health status and health and social care use
  - Appropriateness and safety of care provided
  
• Undertake economic evaluation of the 3 ECP schemes
• Describe the attitudes of the ECPs and other health care professional to the ECP schemes
• Make recommendations for the future development of the role

Outcomes:

Patient outcomes:

• Patient experiences and satisfaction with the ECP service using a patient satisfaction questionnaire currently used in a randomised controlled trial in Sheffield
• Patient time from call to completion of the initial care episode by asking the patient.
• Patient health status at seven days and four weeks measured using the EQ-5D

Process outcomes:

• Place of treatment of patients.
• Economic evaluation of the ECP service by recording and costing all relevant resource use (in line with established economic methods).

Service outcomes:

• Number of patients seen as a proportion of the total emergency service workload of the area covered per shift and overall.
• Safety of the services through patient follow-up at one and four weeks documenting further related episodes requiring medical attention
• Exploring the nature of role change by describing the attitudes of ECPs and other health care professionals to the new role, training for the new role, career opportunities and integration with existing emergency health care services

Outputs:

This study is the second phase in the evaluation of emergency care practitioners. A report and conference abstract from the first phase of the study is now available online. The second phase report is due at the end of April 2005.