| Summary: | Introduction: The Colombian health care system is facing issues to nd an adequate response to the population demand for medical services. This is especially true among certain population groups that require better access to and coverage of health services to ful l their needs in medical care. Objective: To identify factors associated with the use of emergency services in the Hospital San Vicente de Arauca (HSVA) between September 2013 and August 2014. Methods: We conducted a descriptive study using quantitative analysis of the data. Based on HSVA’s reports, four types of factors related to use of emergency services were analyzed: demographics (age and sex), health care system-related (health insurance scheme and status), time- related factors (time of the day, day of the week, month of the year) and triage characteristics (use of emergency services and diagnosis according to triage level). Results: The factors that determined the use of emergency medical services were type of health insurance scheme and sex, with higher use among those in the subsidized scheme (58%) and women (56.7%). Another relevant factor was age, with the highest use among adults aged 19 to 44 years (41.5%). Conclusion: The use of emergency services in HSVA is associated with sex, socioeconomic level (identi ed through health insurance scheme) and age group. At least half of the users who attend the HSVA emergency service might not be doing it in timely fashion, which makes more noticeable the failures in ensuring timely access to outpatient care. Given those outpatient care access issues, patients are seeking to ful l their medical needs by attending emergency services.
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