In particular, the waiting times are among the most important causes of ED patient dissatisfaction and they negatively influence patients’ perception of the service quality. Overcrowding is also associated to the dissatisfaction of both physicians and nurses, working under pressure, and patients waiting to be treated. Therefore, overcrowding is a phenomenon that seriously limits the hospital functions in terms of both delays in the patients’ care and poorer outcomes. This flow has often determined the ED overcrowding, that occurs every time the number of the waiting patients exceeds the available resources, in terms of beds and/or personnel. In recent years, in many Western countries the flow of patients to the Emergency Departments (ED) has constantly increased. In particular, using this matrix, healthcare managers could be facilitated in the identification of possible solutions for their specific situation. The waiting times-admission rates matrix provides a tool able to support managers in detecting the problems related to the management of ED services. The combined reading of the correlations and waiting times-admission rates matrix shows that there are no optimal rules for all the EDs in managing admission rates and waiting times, but solutions have to be found considering mixed and personalized strategies. The Tuscan EDs matrix, the descriptive statistics for each quadrant and the Spearman’s rank correlation analysis among waiting times, admission rates and a set of performance indicators were conducted to help managers to read the phenomena that they need to investigate. Data were collected from the Tuscan performance evaluation system, integrated with specific data on Tuscan EDs’ personnel. To provide the factors to be analyzed once the EDs are positioned into the matrix, a list of issues has been identified. It was applied to the Tuscan EDs as illustrative example. The framework is based on the ED waiting times and ED admission rate matrix. This study aims at providing a logical diagnostic framework to support managers in investigating specific solutions to be applied to their EDs to cope with high ED waiting times. Scholars have identified four main causes for this phenomenon, related to: continuity of primary care services availability of specific clinical pathways for chronic patients ED’s personnel endowment organization of the ED.

Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.In recent years, the flow of patients to the Emergency Departments (ED) of Western countries has steadily increased, thus generating overcrowding and extended waiting times. Increased utilization of evidence-based interventions is needed.Īlcohol Emergency Department Injury Overdose Trend. Other drug involvement increased the likelihood of admission for inpatient treatment.Īlcohol consumption contributed to an increasing number of ED visits in the United States between 20, especially among females. The annual percentage change in rates of all alcohol-related ED visits was larger for females than for males (5.3% vs. The number of acute alcohol-related ED visits increased 51.5% from 1,801,006 to 2,728,313 and the rate increased 40% from 720.9 to 1,009.6 per 100,000 population. The rate increased 47% from 1,223 to 1,802 per 100,000 population and the total cost of such visits increased 272% from $4.1 billion to $15.3 billion. The purpose of this study was to examine trends in ED visits involving acute and chronic alcohol consumption in the United States by age and sex between 20.ĭata from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS), the largest all-payer ED database in the United States involving 945 hospitals in 33 states and Washington, DC, were analyzed to assess changes in prevalence and rates of ED visits involving acute and chronic alcohol consumption by age and sex over time among persons aged ≥12 between 20.īetween 20, the number of ED visits involving alcohol consumption increased 61.6%, from 3,080,214 to 4,976,136. Whether the prevalence of alcohol-related ED visits in the United States has changed in recent years is unknown. Acute alcohol consumption and chronic alcohol consumption increase the burden placed on emergency departments (EDs) by contributing to injury and disease.

Rate of ed visits mesolevel