Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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Observational Study
How much time do doctors spend providing care to each child in the ED? A time and motion study.
The total time per patient doctors spend providing care in emergency departments (EDs) has implications for the development of evidence-based ED staffing models. We sought to measure the total time taken by doctors to assess and manage individual paediatric patients presenting to two EDs in the Western Cape, South Africa and to compare these averages to the estimated benchmarks used regionally to calculate ED staffing allocations. ⋯ Doctor time per patient increased with increasing acuity of triage category and exceeded estimated benchmarks for the highest and lowest acuities. The distinctive methodology can easily be extended to other settings and populations.
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Observational Study
Non-urgent emergency department attendances in children: a retrospective observational analysis.
A significant proportion of ED attendances in children may be non-urgent attendances (NUAs), which could be better managed elsewhere. This study aimed to quantify NUAs and urgent attendances (UAs) in children to ED and determine which children present in this way and when. ⋯ A substantial proportion of ED attendances in children are NUAs. Our data suggest there are particular groups of children for whom targeted interventions would be most beneficial. Children under 5 years would be such a group, particularly in providing accessible, timely care outside of usual community care opening hours.