Code Help: Can This Unique State Regulatory Intervention Improve Emergency Department Crowding?

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Emergency department (ED) crowding adversely affects multiple facets of high-quality care. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts mandates specific, hospital action plans to reduce ED boarding via a mechanism termed "Code Help." Because implementation appears inconsistent even when hospital conditions should have triggered its activation, we hypothesized that compliance with the Code Help policy would be associated with reduction in ED boarding time and total ED length of stay (LOS) for admitted patients, compared to patients seen when the Code Help policy was not followed.

Methods

This was a retrospective analysis of data collected from electronic, patient-care, timestamp events and from a prospective Code Help registry for consecutive adult patients admitted from t

SUBMITTER: Michael SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5942017 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature