title: Consensus statement on advancing research in emergency department operations and its impact on patient care.
abstract: The consensus conference on "Advancing Research in Emergency Department (ED) Operations and Its Impact on Patient Care," hosted by The ED Operations Study Group (EDOSG), convened to craft a framework for future investigations in this important but understudied area. The EDOSG is a research consortium dedicated to promoting evidence-based clinical practice in emergency medicine. The consensus process format was a modified version of the NIH Model for Consensus Conference Development. Recommendations provide an action plan for how to improve ED operations study design, create a facilitating research environment, identify data measures of value for process and outcomes research, and disseminate new knowledge in this area. Specifically, we call for eight key initiatives: 1) the development of universal measures for ED patient care processes; 2) attention to patient outcomes, in addition to process efficiency and best practice compliance; 3) the promotion of multisite clinical operations studies to create more generalizable knowledge; 4) encouraging the use of mixed methods to understand the social community and human behavior factors that influence ED operations; 5) the creation of robust ED operations research registries to drive stronger evidence-based research; 6) prioritizing key clinical questions with the input of patients, clinicians, medical leadership, emergency medicine organizations, payers, and other government stakeholders; 7) more consistently defining the functional components of the ED care system, including observation units, fast tracks, waiting rooms, laboratories, and radiology subunits; and 8) maximizing multidisciplinary knowledge dissemination via emergency medicine, public health, general medicine, operations research, and nontraditional publications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.|Department of Emergency Medicine, Cooper University Hospital, Camden, NJ.
authors.forename: Maame Yaa A B
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Yiadom
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Ward
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR.
authors.forename: Anna Marie
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, George Washington University, Washington, DC.
authors.forename: Jesse M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Pines
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Northeast Ohio Medical University, Rootstown, OH.
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jouriles
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
authors.forename: Donald M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Yealy
mesh_terms: D032921:Consensus; D004632:Emergency Medical Services; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D015337:Multicenter Studies as Topic; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D005791:Patient Care / Q000639:trends*; D011634:Public Health