Visualizing temporal patterns of demand, throughput and crowding in an emergency department.
Emergency department (ED) operational data were calculated at 10-minute intervals throughout 2006 (n = 52561) in the adult ED of an academic medical center. Several operational parameters per observation were measured to better understand temporal patterns of input, throughput, and output of medical services. This may allow for improvement of predictive models of overcrowding. Visualization of this dataset is structured by a calendar template, facilitating discovery of cyclic patterns at diurnal, weekly, and monthly scales.
Calvitti
Alan
A
School of Medicine,University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Hoot
Nathan
N
D001509:Bed Occupancy; D003441:Crowding; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D017146:Models, Organizational; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013995:Time