Rathlev, N.

Delays in patient flow in the emergency department (ED) result in patients leaving without being seen (LWBS). This compromises patient experience and quality of care. Our primary goal was to develop a predictive model by evaluating associations between patients LWBS and ED process measures and patient characteristics.

Hsu, S.

Healthcare contributes 10% of greenhouse gases in the United States and generates two milion tons of waste each year. Reducing healthcare waste can reduce the environmental impact of healthcare and lower hospitals’ waste disposal costs. However, no literature to date has examined US emergency department (ED) waste management. The purpose of this study was to quantify and describe the amount of waste generated by an ED, identify deviations from waste policy, and explore areas for waste reduction.

van Loveren, K.

Our study aimed to determine 1) the association between time spent in the emergency department (ED) hallway and the development of delirium and 2) the hospital location of delirium development.

Ehlers, P.

The handover process in the emergency department (ED) is relevant for patient outcomes and lays the foundation for adequate patient care. The aim of this study was to examine the current prehospital to ED handover practice with regard to content, structure, and scope.

Kanjee, Z.

Patient handoffs from emergency physicians (EP) to internal medicine (IM) physicians may be complicated by conflict with the potential for adverse outcomes. The objective of this study was to identify the specific types of, and contributors to, conflict between EPs and IM physicians in this context.

Jaffe, TA.

Although emergency department (ED) discharge presents patient-safety challenges and opportunities, the ways in which EDs address discharge risk in the general ED population remains disparate and largely uncharacterized. In this study our goal was to conduct a review of how EDs identify and target patients at increased risk at time of discharge.

Shepherd, L.

Patient visits to the emergency department (ED) or urgent care centre (UCC) for the sole purpose of requesting prescriptions are challenging for the patient, the physician, and the department. The primary objective of this study was to determine the characteristics of these patients, the nature of their requests, and the response to these requests. Our secondary objective was to determine the proportion of these medication requests that had street value.

Spiegelman, L.

Increases in emergency department (ED) crowding and boarding are a nationwide issue resulting in worsening patient care and throughput. To compensate, ED administrators often look to modifying staffing models to improve efficiencies.

Moskovitz, JB.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused a disproportionate number of patients to seek emergency care at hospitals in New York City (NYC) during the initial crisis. Our urban emergency department (ED), a member of the NYC public hospital system had to process the increased volume while also differentiating our patients’ critical needs. We established a forward treatment area (FTA) directly in front of the ED to accomplish these goals from March 23–April 16, 2020.

Savioli, G.

Healthcare patterns change during disease outbreaks and pandemics. Identification of modified patterns is important for future preparedness and response. Emergency department (ED) crowding can occur because of the volume of patients waiting to be seen, which results in delays in patient assessment or treatment and impediments to leaving the ED once treatment is complete. Therefore, ED crowding has become a growing problem worldwide and represents a serious barrier to healthcare operations.

Kwok, ESH.

Public health response to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has emphasized social distancing and stay-at-home policies. Reports of decreased emergency department (ED) visits in non-epicenters of the outbreak have raised concerns that patients with non-COVID-19 emergencies are delaying or avoiding seeking care. We evaluated the impact of the pandemic on ED visits at an academic tertiary care center.

Mann, E.

Nationally, there has been more than a 40% decrease in Emergency Department (ED) patient volume during the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) crisis, with reports of decreases in presentations of time-sensitive acute illnesses. We analyzed ED clinical presentations in a Maryland/District of Columbia regional hospital system while health mitigation measures were instituted.

Napoli, MD, et al.

The provider-in-triage (PIT) model has been shown to improve ED throughput, but it is unclear how these improvements are affected by boarding. We sought to assess the effects of boarding on ED throughput and whether implementation of a PIT model mitigated those effects.

Thomas, BS, et al.

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.

O’Shea, MBBS, MA, et al.

Our goal was to critically examine emergency physician’s (EP) beliefs about taking breaks for self-care on shift. Our operational definition of a break for self-care included time not engaging in direct patient care, eating, drinking, using the bathroom, or leaving a clinical area for a mental break

Walsh, MB, et al.

Pediatric emergency department (PED) volume is often constrained by the number of available treatment rooms. In many PEDs patients occupy treatment rooms while awaiting test results or imaging, thereby delaying care for patients who arrive after them.

Montoy, MD, et al.

The ability to accurately identify which patients are more likely to revisit the ED could allow EDs and health systems to develop more focused interventions, but efforts to reduce revisits have not yet found success. Whether patients with a high number of ED visits are at increased risk of a return visit remains underexplored.

Patey, MD, et al.

We assessed the impact of SurgeCon, an ED patient-management protocol, on total patient visits, patients who left without being seen (LWBS), length of stay for departed patients (LOSDep), and physician initial assessment time (PIA) in a rural community hospital ED.

Koziatek, MD, et al.

We implemented a system that electronically alerts ED providers when test results are available for review via a smartphone- and smartwatch-push notification. We hypothesized this would reduce the time from result to clinical decision-making.

Tomar, MD, et al.

Patients discharged from the emergency department (ED) may encounter difficulty finding transportation home, increasing length of stay and ED crowding. We sought to determine the preferences of patients discharged from the ED with regard to their transportation home, and their awareness and past use of ridesharing services such as Lyft and Uber.

Stowell, MD, et al.

The percentage of patients who leave before treatment completion (LBTC) is an important marker of department efficiency. Our study aimed to assess the impact of an ED phlebotomist, dedicated to obtaining blood specimen collection on waiting patients, on LBTC rates.