Annals of emergency medicine
-
Managers use timestamps from computerized tracking systems to evaluate emergency department (ED) processes. This study was designed to determine how accurately these timestamps reflect the actual ED events they purport to represent. ⋯ The timestamps recorded by both active and passive tracking systems contain systematic errors and nonnormal distributions. The active system had much lower precision than the passive system but similar accuracy when large numbers of active system observations were used. Medians should be used to represent timestamp and interval data for reporting purposes. Site-specific data validation should be performed before use of data in high-profile situations.