Predictive Tracking of Patient Flow in the Emergency Services During the Virus Winter Epidemics

Epidemics and infectious diseases in general, punctuate much of the activity of an emergency service. The impact of winter infections is particularly important to vulnerable populations such as infant during bronchiolitis epidemics and the elderly during seasonal influenza. Each year, these epidemic phenomena lead to disorganization of emergency services and healthcare teams by lack of anticipation and organizational measures in particular to manage the approval of emergency services for the most vulnerable populations requiring hospitalization.

For 2 years, the pediatric emergency department of St Etienne University Hospital has a decision support tool for the periods of winter epidemics. Through a retrospective analysis of Passages of Emergency summary, this tool provides an estimate of infants with bronchiolitis flow day to day, and the availability in real time of an abnormally high flow of patients to pediatric emergencies. These data can help to affirm that the epidemic begins in this hospital.