Managing Chaos: Lessons Learned From the Emergency Department

By: Teresa Chan, MD, FRCPC, MHPE
T. Chan is assistant professor, Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine & Faculty of Health Sciences, and program director, Clinician Educator Area of Focused Competence Program, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
“We need a doctor in Resusc 1 STAT!”
“I’m worried that my child has an ear infection.”
“Dr. Chan, can you take a look at this ECG for Bed 8?”
“Doc, do you think I have cancer?”
In a single shift, I may hear all of these … and more. As an academic emergency physician (EP), I might see two dozen patients or more in a single 8-hour shift—and that is on a slower day! In my province of Ontario, our emergency care systems are constantly under pressure.
As a result, the emergency department (ED) is now well-known as a busy, chaotic environment, but is, by and large, the main portal for patients to enter into modern acute care hospitals. EDs are rife with complex and increasingly sick patients, and the modern EP is tasked with organizing care for many patients simultaneously.
The skill of managing the multiplicity of patients in a single ED, however, was a bit of a mystery to me. To be honest, I still recall one day in my final year of residency training when I looked at the ED tracker board and was struck by the realization that I knew all the details and plans for all 16 patients listed.
As medical students, we are taught the traditional case anal...

Source: Academic Medicine Blog - February 13, 2018 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Guest Author Tags: Featured Guest Perspective emergency department multi-patient environments organizing information patients Source Type: blogs