ED Patient Flow

Lower back pain presentations in Emergency Department

Around 70 percent of people will experience lower back pain at some stage of their lives.  
A recent study conducted over five years found one in three people suffering from lower back pain presented to hospital via an ambulance.  

In many cases people will attend an emergency department when they feel they can’t manage their pain or when treatments by community healthcare services have been ineffective or inaccessible due to location or cost. However, 90 per cent of people can get better on their own in a few weeks.

Patient-paramedic trust can help free up emergency departments

Dr. Robbie King is a Senior Advanced Care Paramedic with the Queensland Ambulance Service and a community paramedic. He is also a lecturer at the Australian Catholic University in Brisbane. After studying paramedicine and working as a student paramedic since 2009, he recognised that most patients attended by ambulance services did not require emergency interventions.

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