• Qingyuan Zhuang, Joanna S E Chan, Lionel K Y See, Jianbang Chiang, Shariff R Suhaimi, Tallie W L Chua, and Anantharaman Venkataraman.
• Division of Supportive and Palliative Care, National Cancer Centre, Singapore.
• Ann Acad Med Singap. 2021 Dec 1; 50 (12): 882-891.

IntroductionCancer is a pervasive global problem with significant healthcare utilisation and cost. Emergency departments (EDs) see large numbers of patients with oncologic emergencies and act as "gate-keepers" to subsequent hospital admissions. A proportion of such hospital admissions are rapidly discharged within 2 days and may be potentially avoidable.MethodsOver a 6-month period, we conducted a retrospective audit of active cancer patients presenting to the ED with subsequent admission to the Department of Medical Oncology. Our aims were to identify independent factors associated with a length of stay ≤2 days; and characterise the clinical and resource needs of these short admissions.ResultsAmong all medical oncology admissions, 24.4% were discharged within 2 days. Compared to longer stayers, patients with short admissions were significantly younger (P=0.010), had lower National Early Warning Scores (NEWS) (P=0.006), and had a lower proportion of gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary cancers (P=0.005). Among short admissions, common presenting medical problems were infections (n=144, 36.3%), pain (n=116, 29.2%), gastrointestinal complaints (n=85, 21.4%) and respiratory complaints (n=76, 19.1%). These admissions required investigations and treatments already available at the ED.ConclusionShort admissions have low resource needs and may be managed in the ED. This may help save valuable inpatient bed-days and reduce overall healthcare costs.

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