Quality and effectiveness of an emergency department during weekends.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate whether the quality and effectiveness of an emergency department (ED) are modified during weekends.


METHODS
Quality and effectiveness markers were determined during 539 consecutive days, comparing them according to the day of the week. Quality markers were the daily percentage of patients who died in the internal medical unit (deaths, D), leave ED without being seen (flights, F); returned to the ED (revisits, R), and the percentage of registered complaints (C). Effectiveness markers were: the "number of patients waiting to be seen" (WP), the "waiting time to be seen" (WT), and the "length of visit" (LV).


RESULTS
Quality and effectiveness of ED do not worsen during weekend days and some markers significantly improved during such days: C experienced a 26% decrease (p = 0.001), WT decreased 65% (p<0.001), WP 59% (p<0.001), and LV 24% (p<0.01). Assessing the relation between daily number of visits to ED and the quality and effectiveness markers, a significant and direct association was found of the number of visits with D, F, R, and WP.


CONCLUSIONS
Some of the quality and effectiveness markers of the ED improved during weekend days compared with workdays.
Miró
O
O
Emergency Department, Hospital Clínic, Villarroel 170, 08036 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. omiro@clinic.ub.es <omiro@clinic.ub.es>
Sánchez
M
M
Espinosa
G
G
Millá
J
J
D039602:After-Hours Care / Q000592:standards; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006302:Health Services Research; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D010352:Patient Dropouts; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010507:Periodicity; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D014218:Triage / Q000592:standards; D014850:Waiting Lists