Correlation Between Emergency Department Crowding and Adverse Occurrences in an Academic Hospital: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

IF 2.7 4区医学 Q2 HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES

Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Pub Date : 2025-02-19 eCollection Date: 2025-01-01 DOI:10.2147/RMHP.S504578

Wajdan Alassaf, Razan Albrahim, Jana K Abukhaled, Mujahid Aldhaif, Mashaer Ahmed Mohammed, Alia Al Baiz, Muna Aljahany

{"title":"Correlation Between Emergency Department Crowding and Adverse Occurrences in an Academic Hospital: A Retrospective Cohort Study.","authors":"Wajdan Alassaf, Razan Albrahim, Jana K Abukhaled, Mujahid Aldhaif, Mashaer Ahmed Mohammed, Alia Al Baiz, Muna Aljahany","doi":"10.2147/RMHP.S504578","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Background: Emergency care predominantly involves the treatment of abrupt clinical status deteriorations, illness exacerbation, and potentially life-threatening injuries. However, crowding and excessive delays in the emergency department (ED) affect the quality of care and are associated with undesirable outcomes.Objective: This study aimed to determine the association of emergency department (ED) crowding with patient outcomes at a teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia's Central Province.Methods: Using a retrospective chart review of electronic medical records, we extracted mortality, morbidity, and safety events-related data of all adult, pediatric, and obstetric patients who presented to the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz University Hospital (KAAUH) emergency department (ED) between January 2019 and December 2022. Based on the emergency department (ED) census, these data were cross-referenced by date with the emergency department (ED) situation.Results: Sixty patients had safety events; medication-related safety events were the most prevalent (38%), followed by care-coordination events (30%). Twenty cases of mortality and morbidity were reported. Crowding significantly affected adverse medication-related and care-coordination events (p = 0.0212), with a more significant effect on moderate safety events than on mild safety events (p = 0.0348). Influence of emergency department (ED) crowding (p = 0.3740) was on mortality or morbidity outcomes was detected. The data was extracted from a total of 139176 emergency visits for all categories.Conclusion: In Saudi Arabia, emergency department (ED) crowding signifies a critical healthcare crisis, potentially compromising quality of care. Our findings provide evidence of increased errors in medication, care coordination, and medical care due to emergency department (ED) crowding. Implementing micro and macro-level strategies to reduce emergency department (ED) crowding could help improve patient outcomes.","PeriodicalId":56009,"journal":{"name":"Risk Management and Healthcare Policy","volume":"18 ","pages":"561-568"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11847434/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Risk Management and Healthcare Policy","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S504578","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background: Emergency care predominantly involves the treatment of abrupt clinical status deteriorations, illness exacerbation, and potentially life-threatening injuries. However, crowding and excessive delays in the emergency department (ED) affect the quality of care and are associated with undesirable outcomes.

Objective: This study aimed to determine the association of emergency department (ED) crowding with patient outcomes at a teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia's Central Province.

Methods: Using a retrospective chart review of electronic medical records, we extracted mortality, morbidity, and safety events-related data of all adult, pediatric, and obstetric patients who presented to the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz University Hospital (KAAUH) emergency department (ED) between January 2019 and December 2022. Based on the emergency department (ED) census, these data were cross-referenced by date with the emergency department (ED) situation.

Results: Sixty patients had safety events; medication-related safety events were the most prevalent (38%), followed by care-coordination events (30%). Twenty cases of mortality and morbidity were reported. Crowding significantly affected adverse medication-related and care-coordination events (p = 0.0212), with a more significant effect on moderate safety events than on mild safety events (p = 0.0348). Influence of emergency department (ED) crowding (p = 0.3740) was on mortality or morbidity outcomes was detected. The data was extracted from a total of 139176 emergency visits for all categories.

Conclusion: In Saudi Arabia, emergency department (ED) crowding signifies a critical healthcare crisis, potentially compromising quality of care. Our findings provide evidence of increased errors in medication, care coordination, and medical care due to emergency department (ED) crowding. Implementing micro and macro-level strategies to reduce emergency department (ED) crowding could help improve patient outcomes.

查看原文本刊更多论文

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Medicine-Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

CiteScore

6.20

自引率

2.90%

发文量

242

审稿时长

16 weeks

期刊介绍： Risk Management and Healthcare Policy is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal focusing on all aspects of public health, policy and preventative measures to promote good health and improve morbidity and mortality in the population. Specific topics covered in the journal include: Public and community health Policy and law Preventative and predictive healthcare Risk and hazard management Epidemiology, detection and screening Lifestyle and diet modification Vaccination and disease transmission/modification programs Health and safety and occupational health Healthcare services provision Health literacy and education Advertising and promotion of health issues Health economic evaluations and resource management Risk Management and Healthcare Policy focuses on human interventional and observational research. The journal welcomes submitted papers covering original research, clinical and epidemiological studies, reviews and evaluations, guidelines, expert opinion and commentary, and extended reports. Case reports will only be considered if they make a valuable and original contribution to the literature. The journal does not accept study protocols, animal-based or cell line-based studies.