Portrait of rural emergency departments in Quebec and utilisation of the Quebec Emergency Department Management Guide: a study protocol

Introduction Emergency departmentsare important safety netsfor people who live in rural areas. Moreover, a serious problem in access to healthcare services has emerged in these regions. The challenges of providing access to quality rural emergency care include recruitment and retention issues, lack of advanced imagery technology, lack of specialist support and the heavy reliance on ambulance transport over great distances. The Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services published a new version of the Emergency DepartmentManagement Guide , a document designed to improve the emergency departmentmanagement and to humanise emergency departmentcare and services. In particular, the Guide recommends solutions to problems that plague rural emergency departments. Unfortunately, no studies have evaluated the implementation of the proposed recommendations. Methods and analysis To develop a comprehensive portrait of all rural emergency departmentsin Quebec, data will be gathered from databases at the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services, the Quebec Trauma Registry and from emergency departmentsand ambulance services managers. Statistics Canada data will be used to describe populations and rural regions. To evaluate the use of the 2006 Emergency DepartmentManagement Guide and the implementation of its various recommendations, an online survey and a phone interview will be administered to emergency departmentmanagers. Two online surveys will evaluate qualityof work lifeamong physicians and nurses working at rural emergency departments. Quality-of-care indicators will be collected from databases and patient medical files. Data will be analysed using statistical (descriptive and inferential) procedures. Ethics and dissemination This protocol has been approved by the CSSS Alphonse–Desjardins research ethicscommittee (Project MP-HDL-1213-011). The results will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journalsand presented at one or more scientific conferences.