title: The effects of emergency department overcrowding on admitted patient outcomes: a systematic review protocol.
abstract: The objective of this review is to identify the effects of emergency department (ED) overcrowding on admitted patient outcomes.More specifically, the questions are: does ED overcrowding increase the admitted patient's mortality? Does ED overcrowding increase the admitted patient's hospital length-of-stay? Does ED overcrowding increase the delay in door-to-needle time to treatment (time to antibiotic, time to thrombolysis and time to analgesic)?
authors.affiliation: 1Health Sciences Research Unit: Nursing, Nursing School of Coimbra, The Portugal Centre for Evidence-based Practice: a Collaborating Centre of the Joanna Briggs Institute, Coimbra, Portugal 2Emergency Department: Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra (CHUC), Coimbra, Portugal 3Centre of Studies in Education, Health and Technology - Research and Development Unit, Coimbra, Portugal.
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cardoso
authors.forename: Paulo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Queirós
authors.forename: Madalena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cunha
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rodrigues
authors.forename: João
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Apóstolo
mesh_terms: D003441:Crowding; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D000078202:Systematic Reviews as Topic