Organization of hospital emergency services: integrative research review

Abstract

doi: 10.5216/ree.v12i4.6585

The organization of the emergency services provides elements for a continuous qualified and comprehensive care to users. This integrative review of literature aimed to synthesize the Latin American scientific production about the organization of emergency hospital services between 1988 and March of 2010. Data were collected using an electronic database (LILACS) and registered in a specific instrument. The sample totaled 41 publications. Articles were grouped by content similarity: structural aspects of the health system, twelve articles (29.3%), structural aspects of hospitals, ten articles (24.4%) and quality of care, 19 articles (46.3%). The increase in the number of accidents, urban violence and the insufficient structure of the health services network are factors that have decisively contributed to the overload of the emergency services. The knowledge of this reality is fundamentally important, in order to value the need to restructure the current health system, in the perspective of the consolidation of the SUS (Unified Health System) principles.

Descriptors: Emergency Medical Services; Organization and Administration; Nursing.