Clinical emergencies: profile of hospital assistance

Changes in the morbidity and mortality profile from chronic non-communicable diseases affect the urgency/emergency care services. We aimed to characterize the profile of emergency clinical care, according to demographic and epidemiological variables and length of stay in a teaching hospital in the interior of São Paulo, 2007. This is a descriptive, exploratory and documentary research that used official data, analyzed by descriptive statistics, discussed based on the theoretical framework of reorganization of urgency and emergency clinical care. In this period there were 5,285 clinical assistances, most were male (54.1%), with elementary education (73.9%), aged from 18 to 59 years (62.8%). Diseases of the circulatory system were the most frequent and the average length of stay in the unit was less than 6 hours (39.8%). The characterization of clinical care in the urgency/emergency service enables the work organization in the study unit and in the hospital.