• J Delforge, S Sovaila, L Alix, A Didon, O Steichen, B Ranque, A Froissart, K Amadou, T Hanslik, B Cador, J F Bergmann, A Mekininan, C Goujard, S Gayet, P Cathebras, B Fantin, D Raigniac, J C Weber, E Rosenthal, L Hery, E Andres, Y Benhamou, A Bourgarit, and pour le groupe SiFMI 2015.
• Service de médecine interne et immunologie clinique, CHU de Rennes, 2 rue Henri-Le-Guilloux, 35000 Rennes, France.
• Rev Med Interne. 2021 Feb 1; 42 (2): 79-85.

IntroductionPatients admitted from emergency units represent a large portion of the population in internal medicine departments. The aim of this study is to identify characteristics of patients and organization of these departments.MethodsBetween June 29th and July 26th 2015, voluntary internal medicine departments from the SiFMI group prospectively filled anonymized internet forms to collect data of each patients admitted in their ward from emergency units, during seven consecutive days.ResultsThree hundred and sixty-five patients from emergency departments were admitted in 18 internal medicine inpatients departments, totalling 1100 beds and 33,530 annual stays, 56% of them for emergency units inpatients. Mean age was 68 years, 54% were women, mean Charlson score was 2.6 and 44% of the patients took at least three drugs. Main causes of hospitalization were infectious (29%) and neurological (17%) diseases. Mean length of stay was 9.2 days. The medical team was composed by a median value of 4,5 [2,75-6,25] senior full-time equivalents, 86% were internists. Each department except one received residents, two third of them were from general medicine.ConclusionThis study highlights a high organizational variability among internal medicine departments and patients, and sets internal medicine as a specialty with a great capacity to achieve an integrative/comprehensive management of patients and to offer a comprehensive basis for physicians in training.Copyright © 2020 Société Nationale Française de Médecine Interne (SNFMI). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

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