Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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In this commentary, common misperceptions about education research, and specifically for emergency medicine education research, are addressed. Recommendations for designing and publishing high-quality projects are also provided.
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There has been a steady increase in emergency department (ED) patient volume and wait times. The desire to maintain or decrease costs while improving throughput requires novel approaches to patient flow. The break-out session "Interventions to Improve the Timeliness of Emergency Care" at the June 2011 Academic Emergency Medicine consensus conference "Interventions to Assure Quality in the Crowded Emergency Department" posed the challenge for more research of the split Emergency Severity Index (ESI) 3 patient flow model. A split ESI 3 patient flow model divides high-variability ESI 3 patients from low-variability ESI 3 patients. The study objective was to determine the effect of implementing a split ESI 3 flow model has on patient length of stay (LOS) for discharged patients. ⋯ A split ESI 3 patient flow model improves door-to-discharge LOS in the ED.