• Candace McNaughton, Wesley H Self, Ian D Jones, Patrick G Arbogast, Ning Chen, Robert S Dittus, and Stephan Russ.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA. candace.mcnaughton@vanderbilt.edu
• Am J Emerg Med. 2012 Oct 1;30(8):1474-80.

Background And ObjectivesIn an effort to compensate for crowding, many emergency departments (EDs) evaluate and treat patients in nontraditional settings such as gurneys in hallways and conference rooms. The impact of this practice on ED evaluation time is unknown.Research Design And SubjectsA historical cohort of adult ED visits to an academic hospital between August 1, 2009 and August 1, 2010, was used to evaluate the relationship between ED bed assignment (traditional, hallway, or conference room bed) and mean ED evaluation time, defined as the time spent in an ED bed before admission or discharge. Chief complaints were categorized into the 5 most frequent categories: abdominal/genitourinary, joint/muscle, general (fever, malaise), head/neck, and other. Multiple linear regression and marginal prediction were used to calculate the mean ED evaluation times for each bed type, overall, and by chief complaint category.ResultsDuring the study period, 15 073 patient visits met the inclusion criteria. After adjustment for patient and ED factors, assignments to hallway and conference room beds were associated with increases in a mean ED evaluation time of 13.3 minutes (95% confidence interval, 13.2-13.3) and 10.9 minutes (95% confidence interval, 10.8-10.9), respectively, compared with the traditional bed ED evaluation time. This varied by chief complaint category.ConclusionsUse of nontraditional beds is associated with increases in mean ED evaluation time; however, these increases are small and may be further minimized by restricting the use of nontraditional beds to patients with specific chief complaints. Nontraditional beds may have a role in improving ED throughput during times of crowding.Published by Elsevier Inc.

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