UURIMISTÖÖDE ARTIKLID
FÜSIOTERAAPIA ERAKORRALISES MEDITSIINIS Emergency department physiotherapy Silver Türk, Raul-Allan Kiivet
Abstract The United Kingdom, USA and Australia implement emergency medicine department physiotherapy (EMPT). Estonian literature lacks information on EMPT and its utility. The aim of the thesis is to identify arguments and counterarguments pertinent to possible implementation of EMPT into Estonia: emergency medicine department waiting times, quality of treatment, cost-effectiveness, educational costs, quantity of cases addressable by EMPT and respective treatment expenses. Literature review was used to assess the impact of EMPT on accessibility of emergency medicine, quality of treatment and cost-effectiveness. Due to lack of published data, original research was used to assess educational cost-effectiveness of EMPT training by comparing educational costs. Number of cases and costs pertinent to EMPT were extracted from the data of 431655 cases recorded in the Estonian emergency medicine report of 2016. Implementation of EMPT into Estonia would probably increase patient satisfaction and accessibility of emergency medicine; quality of treatment would be comparable to orthopaedic physicians. Implementation of EMPT would not improve cost-effectiveness. However, the EMPT programs that support early return to work and apply home-based therapeutic exercise may be cost-beneficial at the societal level. Training of EMPT may save from educational costs at least 22500 € to 29000 € per student, and saves time over medical education. The proportion of cases diagnoses relevant for EMPT in Estonia (34538) that 213
