Short summary

This study is designed as a cross-sectional study with an interrupted time series design to evaluate the effect of an acute care team in one Danish municipality. The acute care team is 'Acute Team Odense' which is a part of Odense Municipality, Denmark. The establishment of ATO makes it possible to provide acute nursing at home and hospital treatment at home (e.g., intravenous therapy). Evidence about whether the acute care teams prevents hospitalisations or ambulance transfers do not exist.

Rationale

A major focus of healthcare planning is to prevent unnecessary acute hospitalisations and hospital contacts among older people, which makes it important to increase evidence about alternatives to hospitalisations.

The aim of the present study is to provide evidence about the effect of an initiative that can be used as an alternative to a hospitalisation. The initiative consists of municipal acute care teams which is an example of an implemented mandatory initiative aimed to prevent unnecessary hospitalisations. Evidence about whether the acute care teams prevents hospitalisations do not exist. The acute care teams provide high specialised acute nursing in the patients' own homes (including nursing homes) and strength the primary care setting by utilising acute nurses in the municipalities. The implementation of acute care teams became mandatory for all Danish municipalities in January 2018.

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of an acute care team on the amount and length of following outcomes: all medical emergency department (ED) contacts, expected preventable acute hospital contacts, and acute ambulance transports.

Description of the cohort

All adult citizens aged ≥ 18 years resided in Odense Municipality, Denmark, in the period January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2020. On average, 163,757 adult citizens resided in Odense during the study period.

Data and biological material

- The Danish Civil Registration System

- The Municipality Citizen Record

- The Danish National Patient Register

- The Danish database for prehospital emergency medical services

-Patients' electronic hospital record at Odense University Hospital