Rate of patient workups by non-emergency medicine residents in an academic emergency department.
OBJECTIVE
To quantify the number of patients seen per hour by non-emergency medicine (non-EM) residents in a university hospital ED.


METHODS
This retrospective observational study was performed in a university hospital ED and level I trauma center. The facility had no EM residency, but was staffed with 24-hour EM faculty coverage. A computerized tracking system was searched for the number of patients seen by each of 93 non-EM residents for 12 nonconsecutive months. The ED schedule for each month was used to calculate the number of hours worked by each resident. From these figures, the number of patients seen per hour by each resident was calculated.


RESULTS
The postgraduate years of training of the residents were as follows: 78 (84%) were PGY1, ten (11%) were PGY2, and five (5%) were PGY3. All the residents combined saw a mean 0.95 +/- 0.20 patients/hour, with a range from 0.58 to 1.75 patients/hour. There was no significant difference between the numbers of patients seen when compared by specialty using the Tukey-Kramer test (alpha = 0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
The rate at which non-EM residents work up patients is consistent with previously reported rates for EM residents.
Stone
C K
CK
Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Kentucky Medical Center, Lexington 40536-0084, USA.
Stapczynski
J S
JS
Thomas
S H
SH
Koury
S I
SI
D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate / Q000191:economics; D004635:Emergency Medicine / Q000191:economics; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006280:Health Workforce; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000191:economics; D008511:Medicine; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013038:Specialization; D014481:United States; D014938:Work Capacity Evaluation