To the Editor: I agree with the claim by Richardson that “the overlap between [primary care and emergency department (ED)] services is not as important as many have claimed” and that “‘primary care patients’ and ‘ED [Australasian Triage Scale] category 4 and 5’ patients are not interchangeable”.1 A review of the literature — especially from New Zealand — would show there are considerable differences between patients who attend the two types of services.
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- Australian National University Medical School, Canberra, ACT.
Correspondence: marjan.kljakovic@anu.edu.au
- 1. Richardson DB. Primary care services and emergency medicine [editorial]. Med J Aust 2010; 192: 429-430. <MJA full text>
- 2. Kljakovic M, Dalziel S. Out-of-hours attendance and outcomes for asthmatic patients at two primary care services. N Z Med J 1996; 109: 254-257.
- 3. Gribben B. General practitioners’ assessments of the primary care caseload in Middlemore Hospital Emergency Department. N Z Med J 2003; 116: U329.
- 4. Baker MG, Kljakovic M. The effect of emergency department policy change on Hutt district general practices. N Z Med J 1992; 105: 380-383.
- 5. Kljakovic M, Allan BC, Reinken J. Why skip the general practitioner and go to the accident and emergency department? N Z Med J 1981; 94: 49-52.
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