• Eur J Emerg Med · Oct 2011

    Improving the efficiency of the emergency general surgical service.

    • Catherine E Western, James William Faux, and Melanie Feldman.
    • The Royal Cornwall Hospital, Treliske, Truro, Cornwall, United Kingdom. catherinewestern@yahoo.co.uk
    • Eur J Emerg Med. 2011 Oct 1;18(5):261-4.

    ObjectiveTo improve the quality and efficiency of our emergency surgical service.MethodsUntil 2007, the surgical on-call in our unit was run on a 'consultant of the day' model with triage in a 10-bed surgical receiving unit (SRU) before admission to the wards. The reduction in junior doctors' hours meant little continuity and delays in care.In July 2007, the SRU was expanded and a daily on-ward ultrasound session was established. The consultant rota was changed to a split-week model with twice-daily SRU ward rounds, allowing unstable patients regular senior assessment.ResultsAs a result of the change, our acute length of stay reduced from 4.4 to 3.8 days and our actual versus expected length of stay was the best figure country-wide.ConclusionEarly consultant review and swift ultrasound assessment reduce admissions and patient stay. We have combined these factors in our emergency service and have delivered significant cost savings and improved care.© 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…