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Clinical question: What is the relationship between crowding in the ED and the number of interventions adopted by the ED to address this?
Background: ED crowding results in long waits, prolonged lengths of stay, and delays in providing treatments, which can result in adverse events. Numerous interventions, including bedside registration, ED observation units, fast track, bed czar, surgical schedule smoothing, and pooled nursing, have been implemented to reduce crowding.
Study design: Retrospective, cross-sectional analysis.
Setting: U.S. hospitals in the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS).
Synopsis: From 2007 to 2010, an average of 341 hospitals per year were analyzed from the NHAMCS, representing 139,502 patient encounters. This study evaluated the adoption of nine crowding interventions at the emergency department level (bedside registration, electronic dashboard, RFID tracking, etc.) and eight crowding interventions at the hospital level (bed czar, pooled nursing, full-capacity protocol, board patients in inpatient hallways, etc.).
Bedside registration, electronic dashboard, RFID tracking, bed census, pooled nursing, full-capacity protocol, and boarding patients in the hallway had the highest statistically significant increases in adoption over the study period.
The average number of interventions adopted increased to 6.6 from 5.2, and more-crowded EDs adopted a greater number of interventions than less-crowded EDs. However, in the most-crowded quartile of EDs, 19% did not use bedside registration, and 94% did not use surgical schedule smoothing.
Given that this study is a retrospective, cross-sectional study, it is difficult to determine causality.
Bottom line: More interventions are being adopted by EDs and hospitals to decrease ED crowding, but several of the busiest EDs and hospitals have room for improvement.
Citation: Warner LS, Pines JM, Chambers JG, Schuur JD. The most crowded US hospital emergency departments did not adopt effective interventions to improve flow, 2007–10. Health Aff. 2015;34(12):2151-2159.
Clinical question: What is the relationship between crowding in the ED and the number of interventions adopted by the ED to address this?
Background: ED crowding results in long waits, prolonged lengths of stay, and delays in providing treatments, which can result in adverse events. Numerous interventions, including bedside registration, ED observation units, fast track, bed czar, surgical schedule smoothing, and pooled nursing, have been implemented to reduce crowding.
Study design: Retrospective, cross-sectional analysis.
Setting: U.S. hospitals in the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS).
Synopsis: From 2007 to 2010, an average of 341 hospitals per year were analyzed from the NHAMCS, representing 139,502 patient encounters. This study evaluated the adoption of nine crowding interventions at the emergency department level (bedside registration, electronic dashboard, RFID tracking, etc.) and eight crowding interventions at the hospital level (bed czar, pooled nursing, full-capacity protocol, board patients in inpatient hallways, etc.).
Bedside registration, electronic dashboard, RFID tracking, bed census, pooled nursing, full-capacity protocol, and boarding patients in the hallway had the highest statistically significant increases in adoption over the study period.
The average number of interventions adopted increased to 6.6 from 5.2, and more-crowded EDs adopted a greater number of interventions than less-crowded EDs. However, in the most-crowded quartile of EDs, 19% did not use bedside registration, and 94% did not use surgical schedule smoothing.
Given that this study is a retrospective, cross-sectional study, it is difficult to determine causality.
Bottom line: More interventions are being adopted by EDs and hospitals to decrease ED crowding, but several of the busiest EDs and hospitals have room for improvement.
Citation: Warner LS, Pines JM, Chambers JG, Schuur JD. The most crowded US hospital emergency departments did not adopt effective interventions to improve flow, 2007–10. Health Aff. 2015;34(12):2151-2159.
Clinical question: What is the relationship between crowding in the ED and the number of interventions adopted by the ED to address this?
Background: ED crowding results in long waits, prolonged lengths of stay, and delays in providing treatments, which can result in adverse events. Numerous interventions, including bedside registration, ED observation units, fast track, bed czar, surgical schedule smoothing, and pooled nursing, have been implemented to reduce crowding.
Study design: Retrospective, cross-sectional analysis.
Setting: U.S. hospitals in the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS).
Synopsis: From 2007 to 2010, an average of 341 hospitals per year were analyzed from the NHAMCS, representing 139,502 patient encounters. This study evaluated the adoption of nine crowding interventions at the emergency department level (bedside registration, electronic dashboard, RFID tracking, etc.) and eight crowding interventions at the hospital level (bed czar, pooled nursing, full-capacity protocol, board patients in inpatient hallways, etc.).
Bedside registration, electronic dashboard, RFID tracking, bed census, pooled nursing, full-capacity protocol, and boarding patients in the hallway had the highest statistically significant increases in adoption over the study period.
The average number of interventions adopted increased to 6.6 from 5.2, and more-crowded EDs adopted a greater number of interventions than less-crowded EDs. However, in the most-crowded quartile of EDs, 19% did not use bedside registration, and 94% did not use surgical schedule smoothing.
Given that this study is a retrospective, cross-sectional study, it is difficult to determine causality.
Bottom line: More interventions are being adopted by EDs and hospitals to decrease ED crowding, but several of the busiest EDs and hospitals have room for improvement.
Citation: Warner LS, Pines JM, Chambers JG, Schuur JD. The most crowded US hospital emergency departments did not adopt effective interventions to improve flow, 2007–10. Health Aff. 2015;34(12):2151-2159.
