RESUMEN
STUDY OBJECTIVE: We assess the effect of emergency department (ED) operational stressors on clinician scheduling and throughput. METHODS: We evaluated 2014 to 2018 data from a national ED group. Operational stressors included measures of workload, patient acuity, and complexity. We used multilevel linear regression to estimate the effect of operational stressors, temporal factors, and facility characteristics on ED clinician scheduling; patient throughput, measured as shift-level patient departures per corrected clinician hour; and length of stay. RESULTS: In greater than 14 million ED visits across 359 facility-years, the mean of patient departures per corrected clinician hour was 2.23 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.15 to 2.31). Temporal and facility effects had the greatest influence on patient departures per hour (eg, -0.55 [95% CI -0.75 to -0.36] in 7 am to 3 pm shifts versus midnight to 7 am on Mondays, 0.25 [95% CI 0.03 to 0.47]) in teaching versus nonteaching hospitals, and 0.43 (95% CI 0.24 to 0.61) in larger EDs (30,000 to 59,999 ED visits/year) versus smaller EDs. Operational stressors had significant but small effects on patient departures per hour (eg, length of stay [per-minute increase] 0.002 [95% CI 0.0019 to 0.0023] and percentage admitted [per 1% increase] -0.003 [95% CI -0.004 to -0.001]). Weekday nights, particularly Mondays, had the highest proportion of shifts with increasing length of stay compared with previous years in the same ED. CONCLUSION: ED operational stressors had minimal influence on patient throughput when included in adjusted ED clinician scheduling models, whereas temporal and facility factors were more influential. Therefore, incorporating operational stressors into ED clinician scheduling is less likely to balance workloads than accounting for temporal and facility-level factors alone. Length of stay on some shifts, particularly Monday nights, became increasingly long, suggesting they require additional resources.
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Servicio de Urgencia en Hospital/organización & administración , Admisión y Programación de Personal , Carga de Trabajo , Humanos , Tiempo de Internación , Modelos Lineales , Gravedad del Paciente , Estados UnidosRESUMEN
STUDY OBJECTIVE: Malpractice fear is a commonly cited cause for defensive medicine, but it is unclear whether being named in a malpractice claim changes physician practice patterns. We study whether there are changes in commonly used measures of emergency physician practice after being named in a malpractice claim. METHODS: We performed a retrospective difference-in-differences study comparing practice patterns of emergency physicians named in a malpractice claim and unnamed matched controls working contemporaneously in the same emergency departments (EDs), using data from a national emergency medicine management group (59 EDs in 11 US states from 2010 to 2015). We studied aggregate measures of care intensity (hospital admission rate and relative value units/visit), studied care speed (relative value units/hour and discharged patients' length of stay), and assessed patient experience (monthly physician Press Ganey percentile rank). RESULTS: A total of 65 emergency physicians named in at least 1 malpractice claim and 140 matched controls met inclusion criteria. After the malpractice claim filing date, there were no significant changes in measures of care intensity or speed. However, named emergency physicians' patient experience scores improved immediately after the malpractice claim filing date and showed sustained improvements by 6.52 Press Ganey percentile ranks (95% confidence interval 0.67 to 12.38), with the increase most prominent among those involved in the 46 failure-to-diagnose claims (10.52; 95% confidence interval 3.72 to 17.32). CONCLUSION: We observed a temporal improvement in patient satisfaction scores for emergency physicians in this sample after their being named in a malpractice claim relative to matched controls. Measures of care intensity and speed did not significantly change.
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Medicina Defensiva , Medicina de Emergencia , Mala Praxis , Satisfacción del Paciente , Pautas de la Práctica en Medicina , Adulto , Estudios de Casos y Controles , Medicina de Emergencia/legislación & jurisprudencia , Femenino , Humanos , Tiempo de Internación , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Puntaje de Propensión , Escalas de Valor Relativo , Estudios Retrospectivos , Estados UnidosRESUMEN
STUDY OBJECTIVE: Although intubation is a commonly discussed procedure in emergency medicine, the number of opportunities for emergency physicians to perform it is unknown. We determine the frequency of intubation performed by emergency physicians in a national emergency medicine group. METHODS: Using data from a national emergency medicine group (135 emergency departments [EDs] in 19 states, 2010 to 2016), we determined intubation incidence per physician, including intubations per year, intubations per 100 clinical hours, and intubations per 1,000 ED patient visits. We report medians and interquartile ranges (IQRs) for estimated intubation rates among emergency physicians working in general EDs (those treating mixed adult and pediatric populations). RESULTS: We analyzed 53,904 intubations performed by 2,108 emergency physicians in general EDs (53,265 intubations) and pediatric EDs (639 intubations). Intubation incidence varied among general ED emergency physicians (median 10 intubations per year; IQR 5 to 17; minimum 0, maximum 109). Approximately 5% of emergency physicians did not perform any intubations in a given year. During the study, 24.1% of general ED emergency physicians performed fewer than 5 intubations per year (range 21.2% in 2010 to 25.7% in 2016). Emergency physicians working in general EDs performed a median of 0.7 intubations per 100 clinical hours (IQR 0.3 to 1.1) and 2.7 intubations per 1,000 ED patient visits (IQR 1.2 to 4.6). CONCLUSION: These findings provide insights into the frequency with which emergency physicians perform intubations.
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Obstrucción de las Vías Aéreas/terapia , Competencia Clínica , Medicina de Emergencia/educación , Internado y Residencia/métodos , Intubación Intratraqueal/métodos , Médicos/estadística & datos numéricos , Adulto , Niño , Femenino , Estudios de Seguimiento , Humanos , Intubación Intratraqueal/estadística & datos numéricos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Estudios Retrospectivos , Estados UnidosRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: We sought to identify factors associated with Escherichia coli resistance to ciprofloxacin among discharged emergency department (ED) patient visits treated for a urinary tract infection (UTI). We hypothesized that specific historical factors available upon ED presentation would be associated with increased odds of ciprofloxacin resistance in this population. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective, observational cohort study of consecutive discharged adult ED patient visits with a primary diagnosis of UTI caused by E coli to a single center from 2011 to 2014. Two investigators separately abstracted to a preconstructed data collection form the following independent variables on each included visit: patient age, sex, residence, active immunosuppressive condition or medication, chronic indwelling Foley catheter, hospitalization or antibiotic use within 90 days prior to presentation, and history of recurrent UTIs. We used multivariable logistic regression after taking into account colinearity to identify those independent variables associated with increased odds of ciprofloxacin resistance and report descriptive characteristics of the study cohort, odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence interval (CI) and model strength. RESULTS: Age at least 65 years (OR, 3.15; 95% CI, 1.44-6.87; P=.004), recurrent UTI (OR, 6.23; 95% CI, 2.38-16.30; P<.001), and recent hospitalization (OR, 3.99; 95% CI, 1.56-10.23; P=.004) were significantly associated with ciprofloxacin-resistant E coli UTIs in relevant visits. CONCLUSION: In this single-center study, age at least 65 years, recurrent UTI, and recent hospitalization were most clearly associated with increased odds of ciprofloxacin-resistant UTIs in discharged adult ED patient visits. If validated, these factors should suggest that alternative antimicrobial agents should be considered in the treatment of this condition among discharged adult ED patients.
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Antibacterianos/uso terapéutico , Ciprofloxacina/uso terapéutico , Farmacorresistencia Bacteriana , Servicio de Urgencia en Hospital , Infecciones por Escherichia coli/tratamiento farmacológico , Infecciones Urinarias/tratamiento farmacológico , Adulto , Factores de Edad , Anciano , Infecciones por Escherichia coli/microbiología , Femenino , Hospitalización , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Alta del Paciente , Recurrencia , Estudios Retrospectivos , Factores de Riesgo , Infecciones Urinarias/microbiología , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: We compared the quality of care in admitted febrile neutropenic cancer patients presenting through the emergency department (ED) vs those directly admitted (DA) from the clinic or infusion center. We hypothesized that the quality of care would be comparable between these 2 pathways. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective, observational cohort study of all adult cancer patients hospitalized with subjective or objective fever (≥100.4°F) and documented neutropenia (absolute neutrophil count ≤1000/mm(3)) from January 1, 2011 to June 30, 2013, at 2 hospitals. Two investigators retrieved data including patient age, sex, race, tumor type, blood culture growth, temperature (actual or reported), pathway to admission (ED or DA), time to antibiotic administration, length of stay, and the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) risk score. The primary outcome measures were time to antibiotic administration, appropriateness of antibiotic(s) administered based on published guidelines, length of stay, and MASCC score-based risk assessment. We used the t test for the difference between 2 means with unequal population variances to compare these outcome measures between ED and DA patients. RESULTS: One hundred twenty-seven visits met inclusion criteria (42 [33%] ED visits, 85 [67%] DA visits). Mean time to antibiotic administration, mean length of stay, appropriateness of antibiotics, and MASCC score-based risk assessment were comparable between ED and DA visits (P>.05 for all comparisons). CONCLUSION: The quality of care for febrile neutropenia in patients presenting through the ED was comparable to those directly admitted to the hospital in this 2-center study.
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Antineoplásicos/efectos adversos , Neutropenia Febril Inducida por Quimioterapia/terapia , Servicio de Urgencia en Hospital , Neoplasias/tratamiento farmacológico , Admisión del Paciente , Adolescente , Adulto , Anciano , Anciano de 80 o más Años , Antibacterianos/uso terapéutico , Neutropenia Febril Inducida por Quimioterapia/tratamiento farmacológico , Femenino , Humanos , Tiempo de Internación/estadística & datos numéricos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Garantía de la Calidad de Atención de Salud , Estudios Retrospectivos , Resultado del Tratamiento , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
The 2014 outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa has presented a significant public health crisis to the international health community and challenged U.S. emergency departments (EDs) to prepare for patients with a disease of exceeding rarity in developed nations. With the presentation of patients with Ebola to U.S. acute care facilities, ethical questions have been raised in both the press and medical literature as to how U.S. EDs, emergency physicians (EPs), emergency nurses, and other stakeholders in the health care system should approach the current epidemic and its potential for spread in the domestic environment. To address these concerns, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Emergency Nurses Association, and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine developed this joint position paper to provide guidance to U.S. EPs, emergency nurses, and other stakeholders in the health care system on how to approach the ethical dilemmas posed by the outbreak of EVD. This paper will address areas of immediate and potential ethical concern to U.S. EDs in how they approach preparation for and management of potential patients with EVD.
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Bioética , Brotes de Enfermedades/prevención & control , Servicios Médicos de Urgencia/ética , Servicio de Urgencia en Hospital/ética , Fiebre Hemorrágica Ebola/prevención & control , Medicina de Emergencia , Ética Médica , Ética en Enfermería , Humanos , Sociedades Médicas/ética , Sociedades de Enfermería/ética , Estados UnidosRESUMEN
INTRODUCTION: The objective of this study was to evaluate whether screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) could be incorporated into the emergency nursing workflow using a computerized physician order entry/clinical decision support system. We report demographic and operational factors associated with failure to initiate the protocol and revenue collection from SBIRT. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective, observational cohort analysis of a protocol adding SBIRT to the emergency nursing workflow of a single, tertiary care urban emergency department for all adult patient visits in 2012. Emergency nurses prescreened for unhealthy alcohol or drug use during triage assessment and, when positive, administered SBIRT during treatment area care, all documented in the computerized physician order entry/clinical decision support system. Using multivariable logistic regression, we report demographic and operational factors associated with failure to initiate the protocol. From October 2012, we submitted charges for brief interventions and analyzed collection results. RESULTS: The inclusion criteria were met for 47,693 visits. Of these, 39,758 (83.4%) received triage protocol initiation. Variables associated with decreased odds of protocol initiation were younger age (odds ratio [OR] for rising age, 1.044; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.042-1.045), arrival by ambulance (OR, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.35-0.40), and higher triage acuity (OR, 0.08; 95% CI, 0.07-0.09). Of visits with protocol initiation, 21.4% were documented as positive for at-risk alcohol and/or drug use. However, brief interventions were only administered during 971 visits. During the billing period, $3617.53 was collected on charges of $10,829.15 for 262 completed brief interventions. DISCUSSION: In this study electronic documentation of adults with at-risk alcohol and/or drug use was feasible by emergency nurses, but SBIRT execution and subsequent revenue collection were challenging.