Impact of Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak on the use of emergency medical resources in febrile patients

Jeong, Hyunho; Jeong, Sikyoung; Oh, Juseok; Woo, Seon Hee; So, Byung Hak; Wee, Jeong Hee; Kim, Ji Hoon; Im, Ji Yong; Choi, Seung Pill; Park, Kyoungnam; Cho, Byul Nim Hee; Hong, Sungyoup

Emergency preparedness for the outbreak of respiratory transmittable illness has scarcely focused on preventing overcrowding and protecting staff and patients. Rather, the focus has been on preparing emergency quarantine areas and isolating admission rooms. Overcrowding provides favorable conditions for transmission among patients in the ED, through respiratory droplets, and the authors recommend infection control measures, such as case management, isolation and planning for complex emergencies. 17 A study from an expert panel recommended several interventions, such as creating websites and call centers to help patients find appropriate resources to protect themselves from respiratory transmittable illness. 9 This study confirmed the effects of an outbreak of a highly transmittable respiratory disease on the emergency medical system, which has not been studied in detail in previous studies. Immediately after the MERS outbreak, the Korean government implemented regulations for patient referral between acute care facilities 4 and increased the medical cost for patients who visited EDs without emergency symptoms. The results of this study indicate that these measures had no effect and there remains an urgent need for proper regulation or strategies to prevent ED crowding, particularly for UF patients.