Patient Flow in the Emergency Department

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PATIENT SAFETY AUTHORITY

PA-PSRS and PASSKEY

PATIENT SAFETY ADVISORIES

PATIENTS AND CONSUMERS

ADDRESS:
Patient Safety Authority
333 Market Street
Lobby Level
Harrisburg, PA 17120

Phone: 717-346-0469
Fax: 717-346-1090

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Patient Flow in the Emergency Department

Emergency departments (EDs) in the United States provide a critical service for patients in need of urgent, often life-saving medical care. Additionally, the role of the ED has evolved from providing primarily life-saving treatment to providing urgent unscheduled care to patients unable to gain access to their primary care providers, to providing care to Medicaid beneficiaries, and to providing care to patients without insurance. These factors contribute to crowding in the ED. Timeliness of care in the ED is a matter of patient safety.

Prevention Program Tools

Facilities can use this tool to track the census in the emergency department (ED) for up to ἀve weeks, and track the census separately for adult, pediatric, and trauma patients.

ED Census Tracking Tool

Facilities can use this sample tool to define emergency department front-end process measure thresholds and to specify interventions that may be implemented when a process measure threshold has been reached.

ED Front-End Process Measure Threshold Tool

Facilities can use this sample tool to track the operational benchmarks collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, especially for emergency departments without a comprehensive electronic information system.

ED Operational Measures Tool

Articles

Managing Patient Access and Flow in the Emergency Department to Improve Patient Safety

Timeliness of care in the emergency department starts with the period between the patient arrival and the diagnostic evaluation. This period influences timeliness of care for the remainder of the visit and has been associated with clinical outcomes and patient safety issues.

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