Patient Characteristics and Clinical Process Predictors of Patients Leaving Without Being Seen from the Emergency Department

Introduction:Delays in patient flow in the emergency department (ED) result in patients leaving   without being seen (LWBS). This compromises patient experience and quality of care. Our primary goal was to develop a predictive model by evaluating associations between patients LWBS and ED process measures and patient characteristics.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study in a 95,000 annual visit adult ED comparing patients LWBS, with controls. Data were drawn from four seasonally adjusted four-week periods (30,679 total visits). Process measures included 1) arrivals per hour; 2) “door-to-provider” time; and the numbers of 3) patients in the waiting room; 4) boarding ED patients waiting for an inpatient bed; 5) providers and nurses (RN); and 6) patients per RN. Patient characteristics collected included 1) age; 2) gender; 3) race/ethnicity; 4) arrival mode (walk-in or vi a emergency medical services [EMS]); and 5) acuity based on Emergency...
Source: Western Journal of Emergency Medicine - Category: Emergency Medicine Source Type: research