ED Overcrowding Validation Study (EDOVS)

Baylor Scott and White Health (BSWH)

Status

Unknown

Conditions

Emergency Department Overcrowding

Study type

Observational

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT02754245

014-013

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of this study is to externally validate a new emergency department overcrowding estimation tool (SONET) developed at John Peter Smith Health Network (JPS).

Full description

In recent years, emergency department (ED) overcrowding has become more and more common in regional and tertiary referral hospitals. ED overcrowding status significantly affects ED operational efficiency, resulting in ambulance diversion, increased ED 72h return visits, patient satisfaction, and left without being seen (LWBS) rates.

Several estimation tools were derived to determine ED overcrowding status using various operational parameters such as, but not limited to, total number of ED patients, total ED admission holds, nursing staff, and patient injury severity. However, these tools cannot precisely evaluate ED overcrowding status, nor show strong correlations with ED operational inefficiency. The National Emergency Department Overcrowding Study (NEDOCS) is a widely used estimation tool to determine ED overcrowding status with relatively high consistency rates. However, the study was not able to evaluate interrater reliability since no standard definition of overcrowding existed.

An ED overcrowding estimation tool, SONET, was developed and internally validated at JPS and showed more consistency and accuracy when compared to estimation rates utilizing NEDOCS. All things considered, it is worthwhile to perform a survey study to determine the interrater variability between different evaluators for an ED overcrowding evaluation tool, one utilizing all possible collectible operational variables. In order to minimize the bias and further determine the accuracy of evaluating ED overcrowding status, a multi-center external validation study is warranted. This study will extend to six sites for the purpose of externally validating JPS' novel ED overcrowding estimation tool, SONET, by comparing its overcrowding estimation rates with those derived utilizing NEDOCS.

Enrollment

55,000 estimated patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 100 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

all adult patients visiting the emergency department or urgent care clinic at any one of the six participating sites during the allocated one month time period

Exclusion criteria