Critical Insights Based on the Ministry of Health’s 6-Year Data Analysis: An Epidemiological Study of Patient Visits Trends of Emergency Departments in Türkiye

Abstract

Introduction: Although emergency services are at a vital point in health systems, they occupy a large place in terms of service capacity and finance. An emergency service visit complaint may be within the scope of the primary health-care service, or it may be a health problem that must be completed with the minutes. Overcrowding of emergency departments (EDs) and delayed visits may be critical for priority patients to receive treatment. In our study, it was aimed to examine all 6-year patient visits to all emergency services in Turkiye in detail and to determine the epidemiological trends of visits. Methods: The study includes a total of 925,161,028 ED visits, including both children and adults. Data were collected from the EDs of all healthcare institutions in Türkiye, through the Sağlıkta İstatistik ve Nedensel Analizler (Statistics and Causal Analysis in Health) program web inter-face. Results: Average time from registration to triage was 16.9 min. 787,617,762 triages have been made. About 28.30% were classified as green triage, 68.51% were classified as yellow triage, 3.18% as red triage, <0.01% as black triage, and 137,543,266 visits (14.87% of among total visits) were as other (non-triaged). The highest number of visits, 66.2 million (7.2%), occurred be-tween 20: 00 and 21: 00 weekly, while the lowest number of visits occurred between 5: 00 and 6: 00, with about 6 million visits (0.65%). Discussion and Conclusion: The high volume of ED visits, particularly during non-office hours and among certain de-mo-graphic groups, highlights the need for targeted strategies to optimize healthcare delivery. This could include enhancing primary and secondary care services, improving health literacy among the population, and implementing effective triage systems and which, will be key to ensuring the sustainability of Türkiye’s health-care system and improving health outcomes for the population.