A tool to identify potential primary care presentations in the emergency department

Access to primary care has an impact on health outcomes and is a significant public health issue. Limited access to primary care has seen non-urgent presentations to hospital emergency departments continue to rise globally. A lack of a universal workable definition of what a primary care presentation is has impeded national and international estimations of the true burden. Our aim was to develop a standardised code frame to identify potential primary care patients in the emergency department to allow accurate data estimations to be made, and help inform future interventions.