Login (DCU Staff Only)
Login (DCU Staff Only)

DORAS | DCU Research Repository

Explore open access research and scholarly works from DCU

Advanced Search

The Boomerang study: increased hospital re-admission via the emergency department

Liston, Paul orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-2832-8975, Conyngham, Gerry, Byrne, P.J. orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-4446-1509, Brady, Malcolm orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-4276-3976, Winder-Baggot, S. and Gilligan, Peadar (2022) The Boomerang study: increased hospital re-admission via the emergency department. Irish Journal Medical, 114 (1). ISSN 0332-3102

Abstract
Aims: This research was performed to assess if a reduced length of hospital stay was associated with in-creased re-attendances to, and re-admissions from, the Emergency Department (ED). Methods: Inpatient discharge and ED attendance records over a ten-year period were sampled and collated. Independent sample t-tests and regression were used to assess changes. Results: The analyses found a statistically significant decrease in inpatient hospital length of stay (7.34 to 6.69 days) and a significant increase in ED re-attendance for recently discharged inpatients from 8.88% (539/6065) to 10.98% (687/6255). However, the overall percentage of inpatients returning to a hos-pital bed within 30 days of discharge did not change significantly from 12.30% (746/6065) to 12.65% (791/6255). Conclusion: Results confirm that an increasing percentage of recently discharged inpatients are attending the ED. This finding does not support the hypothesis that increased ED re-attendance of recently discharged inpatients is due to reduced hospital stay because the overall re-admission rate for recently discharged inpatients did not increase. Instead, further analysis revealed a significant change in the re-entry route as the increase in ED attendances is mirrored by a decrease in hospital re-admission via other routes (e.g. outpatient clinics). This change has increased the workload of an already overcrowded ED.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Subjects:Business > Management
Medical Sciences > Health
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > DCU Business School
Publisher:Irish Medical Association
Official URL:https://hdl.handle.net/10779/rcsi.21379116.v1
Copyright Information:Authors
ID Code:32602
Deposited On:12 May 2026 10:07 by Tam Nguyen . Last Modified 12 May 2026 10:07
Documents

Full text available as:

[thumbnail of The-Boomerang-Study-Increased-Hospital-Re-Admission-via-the-Emergency-Department (1).pdf]
Preview
PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0
305kB
Downloads

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Archive Staff Only: edit this record