The following graphs describe hospitalisations following an emergency department visit, as regards the ambulatory contacts with the emergency department (without hospitalisation).
BREAKDOWN ACCORDING TO AGE
With children, youth and young adults an ambulatory use of emergency departments results rarely in hospitalisation. While among the elderly, hospitalisations following a visit to the emergency department are more frequent. After the age of 70, a contact with the emergency department is followed in more than half of the cases by classic hospitalisation. Rarely consulting the emergency department is followed by a day hospitalisation.
BREAKDOWN ACCORDING TO REGION
Almost 45% of contacts with a hospital in the Flemish region start with a visit to the emergency department, compared to just over 60% in the Brussels-Capital Region and the Walloon Region, which is related to the breakdown, according to regions, of the types of stays per 100,000 inhabitants mentioned below.
In Flanders, the emergency services are proportionally less used, per 100,000 inhabitants, and one third of emergency visits continue with hospitalisation. This proportion is higher than in the other 2 regions. In Wallonia and Brussels, four out of five patients return home after their visit to the emergency department. These results reflect different uses of emergencies.
Remark: The stays in the day hospitalisation are less than 1% and therefore not taken into account in the figure.