Interruptions During Sign-out Between Emergency Medicine Residents Before and After Implementation of Group Sign-out Process

Introduction: Interruptions that occur during sign-out in the emergency department (ED) may affect work flow, quality of care, patient safety, errors in documentation, and resident education. Our objective in this study was to determine the frequency and classification (emergent vs non-emergent, in-person vs phone call) of interruptions that occur during emergency medicine (EM) resident sign-out bef ore and after the institution of a group sign-out process involving residents and attending physicians.Methods: A convenience sample of sign-out observations between EM residents were observed and coded between April –December 2021. We excluded sign-out observations of pediatric patients (<18 years of age) and observations not conducted in the main ED. Collected data included number of patients signed out during each observation; total duration in minutes for each observation; total number of interruptions during each observation; and type...

Source: Western Journal of Emergency Medicine - December 22, 2023 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Lin, Andrea Source Type: research