Emergency or immediate attention: a small difference

Classically, the "medical emergency" is defined as an injury or illness that poses an immediate threat to the life of a person and whose assistance cannot be delayed. Nowadays, this term has changed, and an emergency is any new or unexpected circumstance that modifies a person's usual health condition, which being recognized by the patient or by third parties, is perceived as potentially dangerous. Only with the introduction of the concept that this “new or unexpected circumstance” is perceived “by the patient or by third parties” does an important part of the current problem of urgent care begin to be understood, especially if we transform what “poses a threat for life” of the first definition in which it is “potentially” dangerous of the second.

There are several international publications about the use of emergency services. All of them analyze the actual situation using a scheme based on predisposing factors (predisposition to use the services), such as age, sex, race, education, number of members of family or work activity; facilitating factors (ability to obtain them), such as geographical, administrative, temporal or cultural accessibility (the latter is of great importance at the moment); and, finally, need factors (level of illness and perceived state of health).

It is necessary that politicians and the population be aware of the magnitude of the problem, knowing that this type of clinical practice leads to a health system more unsustainable than the current one. After that, measures may be applied to improve the current situation.