Annals of emergency medicine
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Comparative Study
Team assignment system: expediting emergency department care.
We designed and implemented an emergency department (ED) team assignment system, each team consisting of 1 emergency physician, 2 nurses, and usually 1 technician. Patients were assigned in rotation upon arrival to a specific team that was responsible for their care. We monitored the time from arrival to physician assessment, percentage of patients who left without being seen by a physician, and patient satisfaction before and after team assignment system implementation. ⋯ The implementation of a team assignment system in our ED was associated with reduced time to physician assessment, a reduced percentage of patients who left without being seen, and improved patient satisfaction.
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Comparative Study
Epidemiologic patterns of injuries treated in ambulatory care settings.
Epidemiologic studies of injury morbidity have relied primarily on data from emergency departments (EDs) and hospital admissions. We seek to assess the incidences and characteristics of acute injuries treated at EDs and other ambulatory care settings. ⋯ Fewer than half of all medically attended acute injuries in the United States receive initial treatment in EDs. Injury severity and characteristics vary among care settings.
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We determine how emergency department (ED) registered nurses (RNs) allocate their time between various tasks and describe how RN task distribution changes as a function of various measures of ED patient volume and patient acuity. ⋯ Regardless of workload, RNs spend the majority of their time performing indirect patient care. RNs spend little time performing tasks that could be performed by ancillary staff. The patient-to-nurse ratio performs just as well as a more complicated acuity index to measure the workload of RNs within an ED.