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Open research questions in Emergency and Acute Care Studies

469 gap statements mined from Emergency and Acute Care Studies papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 2,985 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

Choosing where to publish on Emergency and Acute Care Studies? See the ranked Medicine journals.

What the literature leaves open

  • 5 | Limitations This study was undertaken in one state of Australia, and given that every state and territory government run their health services independently, results may differ outside the study setting.

    Access Block and Ambulance Ramping: The Canaries of the Healthcare System · 2026 · DOI

  • Future work should focus on multicenter validation to evaluate generalizability across diverse health care systems with varying operational structures. Prospective real-time deployment studies will be essential to characterize the full intervention loop: prediction generation, operational responses, and impact on abandonment rates.

    Predicting Call Abandonment in a Health Care Call Center Using Nonpersonal Operational Data: Machine Learning Study · 2026 · DOI

  • The previously described rule based on a small AUC difference followed by prioritization of sensitivity had not been documented before the original analysis and was therefore not regarded as a prespecified model-selection procedure.

    Development and internal validation of triage-stage prediction models for short-term critical outcomes among adult emergency department patients entering observation or hospital-based care: a retrospective study · 2026 · DOI

  • Future studies should validate these findings in multi-center cohorts, particularly in hospitals with different triage and zone-allocation policies, to assess generalizability. Prospective designs incorporating caregiver interviews, discharge instruction quality, and post-discharge follow-up data could help distinguish potentially preventable returns from those driven by unavoidable disease progression.

    Clinical and diagnostic factors associated with 72-h unscheduled return to high-priority pediatric emergency care: a health services retrospective cohort study · 2026 · DOI

  • Although whiplash injuries are common and costly, longitudinal data on incidence trends is lacking in recent years, and research on the impact of public health campaigns and global disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic is scarce.

    Fifteen Years of Emergency Visits for Whiplash Injuries: Impact of COVID-19 and Campaign to Reduce Minor Injury Admission · 2025 · DOI

  • In the context of COVID-19, available data are inconsistent, one study reported increased weekend mortality, whereas other showed a trend toward reduced mortality.

    Weekend Effect and Predictors of Mortality for Patients Presenting to Emergency Department with COVID-19 Infection · 2025 · DOI

  • Because studies using matched inpatient and outpatient comparators with longitudinal endpoints are scarce, we evaluated the effectiveness, safety, and medical costs of an ED-initiated OPAT program in Taiwan.

    Emergency department-initiated outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy in Taiwan: A retrospective cohort study on clinical outcomes and cost analysis · 2025 · DOI

  • Despite the small number of articles eligible for this review, there was some limited evidence that appropriate and higher-level training not only improves ED non-conveyance but also increased paramedic competence and confidence in patient assessment and decision making.

    Paramedic Education and Training for the Management of Patients Presenting with Low-Acuity Clinical Conditions: A Scoping Review · 2024 · DOI

  • Future research is needed to investigate more about frequent emergency department users with mental illness or addiction and how to best assist them and the health care systems in which they seek support.

    Health Care Service Use Outcomes of a Community Mental Health Program for Frequent Emergency Department Users · 2026 · DOI

  • However, the accuracy of these estimates cannot be validated because empirical data on their effects in the Dutch health care system is lacking.

    Simulating the impact of preventive strategies for older persons’ emergency care demands on health care utilisation, Amsterdam as Dutch use case · 2026 · DOI

  • The model has not been tested against external cohorts, and the operating characteristics reported here are likely to differ in institutions with distinct patient case-mix, triage practices, or documentation conventions.

    Beyond Vital Signs: A Machine Learning Model Using Comprehensive Triage-Time Data to Detect Undertriage in Emergency Department Patients · 2026 · DOI

  • Few studies have assessed the factors and clinical indicators that predict the need for in-hospital emergency interventions as an outcome.

    Early identification of emergency abdominal surgery candidates in the emergency department – a Delphi study · 2026 · DOI

  • As such, efficacy in higher-acuity patient cohorts, as well as lower priority patients determined not require an ambulance remains to be established.

    Machine learning assisted differentiation of low acuity patients at dispatch: The MADLAD randomized controlled trial · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of specialized care for oncological patients in general ERs. The need for more data on cancer-related emergency room visits.

    Abdominal cancer pain admission in emergency department vs. oncology emergency department · 2025 · DOI

  • From the small number of articles identified, there appears to be limited research in this area of paramedic education. While this extra training was clinically focussed, it was still insufficient to influence the non-conveyance rates.

    Paramedic Education and Training for the Management of Patients Presenting with Low-Acuity Clinical Conditions: A Scoping Review · 2024 · DOI

  • Existing delivery innovations to reduce ED use are underused, and reasons for this are not understood.

    How English- and Spanish-Preferring Patients With Cancer Decide on Emergency Care · 2024 · DOI

  • Further research is needed to understand the extent to which emergency diagnoses can be prevented, and whether doing so would improve outcomes for these patients. Further research is needed to understand whether it is possible to diagnose these patients through alternative diagnostic routes, whether doing so would positively impact patient outcomes, and, if so, how these aims could be achieved in practice.

    Frequency and prognostic outcomes of emergency diagnosis in 13 non-neoplastic conditions in England: A population-based cohort study using linked electronic health records of 1.7 million patients · 2026 · DOI

  • By gathering stakeholders' perspectives, findings of this study could help to propose and evaluate suitable PEC interventions and enablers that could be explored in Singapore and similar healthcare systems globally.

    Exploring Pre-hospital Emergency Care Challenges and Interventions in Singapore: A Qualitative Environmental Scan · 2026 · DOI

  • Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with chronic conditions are increasingly surviving into adulthood, yet little is known on their use of pediatric emergency departments (PEDs).

    Trends in emergency department utilization by patients with chronic conditions aged 15 and over in a tertiary-care Italian pediatric emergency department (2010–2022) · 2026 · DOI

  • However, a robust definition and the characteristics of patients at risk remain unclear.

    Identifying Oncology Patients at High Risk for Potentially Preventable Emergency Department Visits Using a Novel Definition · 2024 · DOI

  • There is limited evidence on whether the presence of an emergency department (ED) that exceeds a certain hospital bed capacity is associated with emergency patient outcomes at the regional level.

    Effect of the Presence of Emergency Departments with 300 or More Hospital Beds in Health Service Areas on 30-Day Mortality in Korea: A Nationwide Retrospective Cross-sectional Study · 2024 · DOI

  • Further research is warranted to optimize emergency processes and outcomes during public health emergencies, as well as examine strategies through multicenter investigations comparing prepandemic to intra-pandemic performance to provide broader insights into challenges and inform efforts to bolster emergency care through future crises.

    Comparing Emergency Nursing Measures Before and During COVID-19: A Retrospective Study of Assessment, Triage, and Workflow · 2024 · DOI

  • Investigating the long-term effects of oncology emergency care on patient outcomes, - Comparing the effectiveness of different models of oncology emergency care, - Examining the cost-effectiveness of oncology emergency…

    Abdominal cancer pain admission in emergency department vs. oncology emergency department · 2025 · DOI

  • However, no consensus emerged on their relative importance, suggesting that early recognition depends on patterns of multiple symptoms and objective clinical markers, rather than any single factor.

    Early identification of emergency abdominal surgery candidates in the emergency department – a Delphi study · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research could focus on developing and testing nurse-led interventions, such as telephone triage protocols or community-based education programs, to analyze their effectiveness in empowering citizens, making them more aware…

    Ambulance Use Appropriateness: Emergency Medical Service Technicians’ and Triage Nurses’ Assessments and Patients’ Perceptions · 2025 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Emergency and Acute Care Studies

Most recent work

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This page shows what the Emergency and Acute Care Studies literature already flags as unresolved. To narrow it to your specific question, search the Research Gap Finder: the search is free with a free account and lists the papers closest to your topic first. Unlocking that topic (50 credits, charged once) fills the comparison table from our 7.9M-paper local library and writes the gaps from its rows.

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) Future work should focus on multicenter validation to evaluate generalizability across diverse health care systems with varying operational structures (“Predicting Call Abandonment in a Health Care Call Center Using Nonpersonal…”, 2026); (2) Future studies should validate these findings in multi-center cohorts, particularly in hospitals with different triage and zone-allocation policies, to assess generalizability (“Clinical and diagnostic factors associated with 72-h unscheduled return to…”, 2026); (3) Future research is needed to investigate more about frequent emergency department users with mental illness or addiction and how to best assist them and the health care systems in which they seek support (“Health Care Service Use Outcomes of a Community Mental Health Program for…”, 2026); (4) The accuracy of these estimates cannot be validated because empirical data on their effects in the Dutch health care system is lacking (“Simulating the impact of preventive strategies for older persons’ emergency…”, 2026); (5) The model has not been tested against external cohorts, and the operating characteristics reported here are likely to differ in institutions with distinct patient case-mix, triage practices, or documentation conventions (“Beyond Vital Signs: A Machine Learning Model Using Comprehensive Triage-Time…”, 2026). 469 gap statements have been mined from Emergency and Acute Care Studies papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 2,985 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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