Medicine:Left without being seen
Left Without Being Seen (LWBS) is a healthcare term often used by emergency departments (ED) to designate a patient encounter that ended with the patient leaving the healthcare setting before the patient could be seen by a certified physician. Often the inclusion of this phrase in a medical record is the result of ED overcrowding (i.e. the patient could no longer wait in the ED to be seen by a physician, so they left without alerting a healthcare professional). Typically, those patients who leave an emergency department without being seen are not at an increased risk of death, and often do not require inpatient hospital admission.[1][2] An increase in LWBS patients may be reflective of systemic public healthcare logistical issues. [3]
References
- ↑ Sainsbury SJ. (October 1990). "Emergency patients who leave without being seen: are urgently ill or injured patients leaving without care.". Mil Med 155 (10): 460–64. doi:10.1093/milmed/155.10.460. PMID 2122285.
- ↑ "Characteristics of patients who leave emergency departments without being seen". Acad Emerg Med 13 (8): 848–52. Aug 2006. doi:10.1197/j.aem.2006.01.028. PMID 16670258.
- ↑ Li, David R.; Brennan, Jesse J.; Kreshak, Allyson A.; Castillo, Edward M.; Vilke, Gary M. (July 2019). "Patients Who Leave the Emergency Department Without Being Seen and Their Follow-Up Behavior: A Retrospective Descriptive Analysis". The Journal of Emergency Medicine 57 (1): 106–113. doi:10.1016/j.jemermed.2019.03.051. ISSN 0736-4679. PMID 31078346. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31078346/.
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