In the clip above, Björn af Ugglas talks about the consequences of the lack of care places.
Across Europe, care places have declined over the past 20 years.
The longest development has been in Sweden, where care places have decreased from 3.6 care places per 1,000 inhabitants at the turn of the millennium to two today.
Increased risk of death
Björn af Ugglas is a doctor of medical science at Karolinska Institutet and a business developer at Karolinska University Hospital.
An SNS report based on his doctoral dissertation examines how patient safety is affected by overcrowded emergency rooms and lack of care places.
- We have two studies where we looked at over two million patient visits in both studies.
There we see a connection between congested emergency rooms and an increased risk of death.
The first study shows that there is a link between congestion in the emergency rooms in the Stockholm Region and an increased mortality during the years 2012 to 2016. This is the equivalent of 125 deaths over five years.
"Increases the load"
But researchers have not found the same connection in all hospitals studied.
In Region Skåne, mixed results were seen, while in Region Östergötland no connection was found between congestion in the emergency department and increased mortality.
However, these two regions had a lower occupancy rate, 92 and 81 per cent, respectively, than Stockholm's 101 per cent.
In the SNS report, Björn af Ugglas launches a theory that a high occupancy rate in hospitals strengthens the connection between congested emergency rooms and increased mortality.
Björn af Ugglas sees the availability of care places as very important for patient safety.
- The lack of care places increases the burden on our emergency rooms.