Trends and predictors of frequent and nonurgent use of emergency departments in Canada's paediatric population

Emergency departments are an important part of healthcare systems as they help patients with urgent medical needs. The use of emergency departments in Canada by children has been increasing over time. This increase has a negative effect on how emergency departments work and leads to overcrowding. Right now, there is limited Canadian research about the how big this problem is in each community across Canada. We also do not know which groups of children use emergency departments the most, or which children go to emergency departments for nonurgent problems that could have been prevented or treated elsewhere. It would be very useful to know how individual characteristics such as a child's sex, age, family income, and the neighbourhoods they live in make some children more likely to use emergency departments, as well as how all of these patterns changed around the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this project is to produce up-to-date information on how many children in each community are frequent emergency department users and how many use emergency departments for nonurgent problems. We also aim to look at which groups of children use emergency departments, to see if there are common characteristics that could predict other children's outcomes. Together with our team of 25 researchers and clinicians, and national healthcare organizations for physicians and hospitals we hope to get this information into the hands of the decisionmakers who can find solutions to overcrowding at emergency departments.