Impact of Scribes with Flow Coordination Duties on Throughput in an Academic Emergency Department

Autor: Keith Thomas, Joshua Marcum, Alexei Wagner, Michael A. Kohn
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, Vol 21, Iss 3 (2020)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1936-9018
DOI: 10.5811/westjem.2020.2.46110
Popis: Introduction: With the increasing influence of electronic health records in emergency medicine came concerns of decreasing operational efficiencies. Particularly worrisome was increasing patient length of stay (LOS). Medical scribes were identified to be in a good position to quickly address barriers to treatment delivery and patient flow. The objective of this study was to investigate patient LOS in the mid- and low-acuity zones of an academic emergency department (ED) with and without medical scribes. Methods: A retrospective cohort study compared patient volume and average LOS between a cohort without scribes and a cohort after the implementation of a scribe-flow coordinator program. Patients were triaged to the mid-acuity Vertical Zone (primarily Emergency Severity Index [ESI] 3) or low-acuity Fast Track (primarily ESI 4 and 5) at a tertiary academic ED. Patients were stratified by treatment zone, acuity level, and disposition. Results: The pre-intervention and post-intervention periods included 8900 patients and 9935 patients, respectively. LOS for patients discharged from the Vertical Zone decreased by 12 minutes from 235 to 223 minutes (p
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