Articles: emergency-services.
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A retrospective audit of 17,028 emergency charts at USAF Medical Center, Scott was performed over two time periods to compare patient waiting times and selected quality assurance parameters with two methods of physician staffing. Phase 1 consisted of 4 months when the Emergency Department (ED) was manned with five physicians assigned only to that department. Non-departmental physicians supplemented the full-time staff. ⋯ The time required to be seen by a physician decreased from an average of 25.6 minutes per patient in phase 1 to 13.7 minutes per patient in phase 2. Time to disposition also decreased from 71.9 minutes per patient in phase 1 to 59.5 minutes per patient in phase 2. In the second phase the number of "positive" x-ray findings increased, while the number of incomplete charts and patients who left without being seen by a physician diminished.
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Connecticut medicine · Jan 1990
Connecticut emergency department physicians survey. Implications for graduate medical education.
A survey conducted in mid-1989 of 36 Connecticut hospital emergency departments sought to determine the nature of physician staffing and the volume and the acuteness of patient problems. Overall, only 31% of emergency department staffing is provided by board certified emergency physicians in the state of Connecticut. In addition to emphasizing the lack of board certified emergency physicians available in the state, this survey also indicated a relative deficiency in emergency department physician staffing in general with approximately 20% of all positions currently unfilled statewide. The implications of these findings for graduate medical education in Connecticut are discussed.
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Whether it's indigent care, cost containment, transfer laws, financially wary HMOs, overcrowding, reimbursement, or emergency-department inefficiency, the factors "putting the squeeze" on emergency medicine seem to multiply with each new survey. These pressures, the authors feel, are not only weakening the provision of emergency care but also strengthening the argument for a national health plan.