Time Series Analysis of Emergency Department Length of Stay per 8-Hour Shift

Western Journal of Emergency Medicine

关键词: Crowding;    Length of Stay;    Occupancy;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Introduction: The mean emergency department (ED) length of stay (LOS) is considered a measure ofcrowding. This paper measures the association between LOS and factors that potentially contribute toLOS measured over consecutive shifts in the ED: shift 1 (7:00 AM to 3:00 PM), shift 2 (3:00 PM to 11:00PM), and shift 3 (11:00 PM to 7:00 AM).Methods: Setting: University, inner-city teaching hospital. Patients: 91,643 adult ED patients betweenOctober 12, 2005 and April 30, 2007. Design: For each shift, we measured the numbers of (1) EDnurses on duty, (2) discharges, (3) discharges on the previous shift, (4) resuscitation cases, (5)admissions, (6) intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and (7) LOS on the previous shift. For each 24-hour period, we measured the (1) number of elective surgical admissions and (2) hospital occupancy.We used autoregressive integrated moving average time series analysis to retrospectively measurethe association between LOS and the covariates.Results: For all 3 shifts, LOS in minutes increased by 1.08 (95% confidence interval 0.68, 1.50) forevery additional 1% increase in hospital occupancy. For every additional admission from the ED, LOSin minutes increased by 3.88 (2.81, 4.95) on shift 1, 2.88 (1.54, 3.14) on shift 2, and 4.91 (2.29, 7.53) onshift 3. LOS in minutes increased 14.27 (2.01, 26.52) when 3 or more patients were admitted to the ICUon shift 1. The numbers of nurses, ED discharges on the previous shift, resuscitation cases, andelective surgical admissions were not associated with LOS on any shift.Conclusion: Key factors associated with LOS include hospital occupancy and the number of hospitaladmissions that originate in the ED. This particularly applies to ED patients who are admitted to theICU.

【 授权许可】

Unknown