The goal of this clinical trial is to learn whether initial assessment by a physician specializing in emergency medicine can improve the care of adults who come to the emergency department with acute abdominal pain or another undifferentiated acute abdominal condition and are referred for surgical assessment.
The main questions it aims to answer are:
Does initial assessment by an emergency medicine physician reduce the time patients spend in the emergency department? Is this model of care as safe as standard surgical assessment, including the risk of readmission and death within 30 days?
Researchers will compare patients who receive their initial assessment from an experienced emergency medicine physician with patients who receive standard care, where the initial assessment is usually performed by a junior surgical physician.
Participants will:
Be randomly assigned to one of the two models of initial assessment Receive diagnostic tests and treatment according to usual clinical practice Be followed for outcomes such as use of diagnostic imaging, treatment, hospital stay, readmission, and mortality Be asked to complete a short questionnaire about their experience in the emergency department
The study does not involve experimental drugs, devices, or procedures. The intervention changes which type of physician is responsible for the initial assessment and management in the emergency department.