Assessing bottlenecks in Emergency Department flow of patients with abdominal pain

Crowding at Emergency Departments (EDs) is a major international problem [1]. It is associated with numerous adverse events, such as unsafe waiting times, elapsed target times to triage, delayed treatments, increased length of stay (LOS) and poor quality of care [2 –4]. High attendance rates at EDs reduce patient flow as transfer or discharge cannot keep pace with new arrivals [5]. During crowding, queuing in the waiting room for an ED bed, waiting times for triage and for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, and waiting times for specialty consultations i ncrease [6–8], and patient satisfaction decreases [9–11].

Source: International Emergency Nursing - March 26, 2018 Category: Nursing Authors: M. Christien Van Der Linden, Merel Van Loon, Nienke S.F. Feenstra, Naomi Van Der Linden Source Type: research