A Physician Nurse Team Adjacent to Triage Improves Length of Stay and Decreases Left Without Being Seen.

Abstract

Introduction: Staffing significantly influences ED throughput, however there is a shortage of Registered Nurses (RNs), impacting ED flow and crowding. Non-RN providers, like Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), could potentially assist with tasks traditionally assigned to RNs. To improve the front-end ED process, we implemented an Attending Physician-Licensed Practical Nurse Team (PNT) positioned next to triage and utilized existing ED hallway space.

Methods: This study took place at a tertiary care ED with over 110,000 annual visits. We compared postintervention (Post-PNT) data (11/1/22-2/28/23) to pre-intervention (Pre-PNT) data (7/31/22-10/31/22). The PNT, positioned adjacent to triage, expedited care for ED patients awaiting open rooms. They selected patients from the waiting room to bypass the Main ED, evaluated them in a private room, and then moved them to the hallway pending further care. Multivariable Regression Analysis was utilized to measure the impact of different factors on ED Length of Stay (LOS).

Results: We analyzed 23516 patient visits, 10288 in the Pre-PNT period and 13288 in the Post-PNT period. Post-PNT consisted of 2454 PNT visits and 10834 non-PNT visits. The intervention led to significant improvements, including a decrease in mean ED LOS from 492 to 425 minutes, decrease in 72-hour revisits from 5.1% to 4.0%, decrease in Left Without Being Seen from 6.7% to 3.3%, and decrease in mean Arrival-to-Provider time from 74 minutes to 60 minutes. Multivariable Regression Analysis showed that ED LOS was significantly lower for Post-PNT patients than Pre-PNT.

Conclusion: By leveraging the scope of LPNs and utilizing existing ED space, the PNT model successfully reduced front-end bottlenecks, leading to improved throughput, revisit rate, and LWBS rate.