ObjectivesShared decision-making (SDM) is receiving increasing attention in emergency medicine because of its potential to increase patient engagement and decrease unnecessary healthcare utilisation. This study sought to explore physician-identified barriers to and facilitators of SDM in the ED.MethodsWe conducted semistructured interviews with practising emergency physicians (EP) with the aim of understanding when and why EPs engage in SDM, and when and why they feel unable to engage in SDM. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and a three-member team coded all transcripts in an iterative fashion using a directed approach to qualitative content analysis. We identified emergent themes, and organised themes based on an integrative theoretical model that combined the theory of planned behaviour and social cognitive theory.ResultsFifteen EPs practising in the New England region of the USA were interviewed. Physicians described the following barriers: time constraints, clinical uncertainty, fear of a bad outcome, certain patient characteristics, lack of follow-up and other emotional and logistical stressors. They noted that risk stratification methods, the perception that SDM decreased liability and their own improving clinical skills facilitated their use of SDM. They also noted that the culture of the institution could play a role in discouraging or promoting SDM, and that patients could encourage SDM by specifically asking about alternatives.ConclusionsEPs face many barriers to using SDM. Some, such as lack of follow-up, are unique to the ED; others, such as the challenges of communicating uncertainty, may affect other providers. Many of the barriers to SDM are amenable to intervention, but may be of variable importance in different EDs. Further research should attempt to identify which barriers are most prevalent and most amenable to intervention, as well as capitalise on the facilitators noted.
Background: Shared decision making (SDM) is increasingly recognized as an important facet of patientcentered care. Despite growing interest in SDM in the emergency department (ED), little is known about emergency physicians' (EPs') motivations for using SDM. Understanding current patterns of SDM use and EP's rationale for using SDM is essential for the development of interventions to increase use.
Background Physicians need to rapidly and effectively facilitate patient-centered, shared decision-making (SDM) conversations, but little is known about how residents or attending physicians acquire this skill.
A threshold MOD of 5 cm on pelvic ultrasound may be useful to rule out ovarian torsion in postmenarchal females presenting with lower abdominal and pelvic pain.
Introducion:With the rapid expansion of emergency ultrasound, resident education in ultrasound has become more clearly developed and broadly integrated. However, there still exists a lack of guidance in the training of physicians already in practice to become competent in this valuable skill. We sought to employ a step-wise, goal-directed, incentive-based credentialing program to educate emergency physicians in the use of emergency ultrasound. Successful completion of this program was the primary outcome.Methods:The goal was for the physicians to gain competency in 8 basic ultrasound examinations types: aorta, focused assessment with sonography in trauma, cardiac, renal, biliary, transabdominal pelvic, transvaginal pelvic, and deep venous thrombosis. We separated the 2.5 year training program into 4 distinct blocks, with each block focusing on 2 of the ultrasound examination types. Each block consisted of didactic and hands-on sessions with the goal of the physician completing 25 technically-adequate studies of each examination type. There was a financial incentive associated with completion of these requirements.Results:A total of 31 physicians participated in the training program. Only one physician, who retired prior to the end of the 2.5 year period, did not successfully complete the program. All have applied for and received hospital privileging in emergency ultrasound and incorporated it into their daily practice.Conclusion:We found that a step-wise, incentive-based ultrasound training program with a combination of didactics and ample hands-on teaching was successful in the training of physicians already in practice.
IntroductionPatient progress, the movement of patients through a hospital system from admission to discharge, is a foundational component of operational effectiveness in healthcare institutions. Optimal patient progress is a key to delivering safe, high-quality and high-value clinical care. The Baystate Patient Progress Initiative (BPPI), a cross-disciplinary, multifaceted quality and process improvement project, was launched on March 1, 2014, with the primary goal of optimizing patient progress for adult patients.MethodsThe BPPI was implemented at our system’s tertiary care, academic medical center, a high-volume, high-acuity hospital that serves as a regional referral center for western Massachusetts. The BPPI was structured as a 24-month initiative with an oversight group that ensured collaborative goal alignment and communication of operational teams. It was organized to address critical aspects of a patient’s progress through his hospital stay and to create additional inpatient capacity. The specific goal of the BPPI was to decrease length of stay (LOS) on the inpatient adult Hospital Medicine service by optimizing an interdisciplinary plan of care and promoting earlier departure of discharged patients. Concurrently, we measured the effects on emergency department (ED) boarding hours per patient and walkout rates.ResultsThe BPPI engaged over 300 employed clinicians and non-clinicians in the work. We created increased inpatient capacity by implementing daily interdisciplinary bedside rounds to proactively address patient progress; during the 24 months, this resulted in a sustained rate of discharge orders written before noon of more than 50% and a decrease in inpatient LOS of 0.30 days (coefficient: −0.014, 95% CI [−0.023, −0.005] P< 0.005). Despite the increase in ED patient volumes and severity of illness over the same time period, ED boarding hours per patient decreased by approximately 2.1 hours (coefficient: −0.09; 95% CI [−0.15, −0.02] P = 0.007). Concurrently, ED walkout rates decreased by nearly 32% to a monthly mean of 0.4 patients (coefficient: 0.4; 95% CI [−0.7, −0.1] P= 0.01).ConclusionThe BPPI realized significant gains in patient progress for adult patients by promoting earlier discharges before noon and decreasing overall inpatient LOS. Concurrently, ED boarding hours per patient and walkout rates decreased.
My colleague asked, “Do you remember that patient?” I froze because, like most emergency physicians, this phrase haunts me. It was the early days of the COVID-19 epidemic, and the story that followed was upsetting. A patient who looked comfortable when I admitted him was intubated hours later by the rapid response team who was called to the floor. All I could think was, “But he looked so comfortable when I admitted him; he was just on a couple of liters of oxygen. Why was he intubated?”
In the days after COVID-19 arrived in our region, there were many such stories of patients sent to the floor from the Emergency Department who were intubated shortly after admission. Many of those patients subsequently endured prolonged and complicated courses on the ventilator. While we would typically use noninvasive modalities such as high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) or noninvasive ventilation (NIV) for acute respiratory failure, our quickness to intubate was driven by two factors: (1) early reports that noninvasive modalities posed a high risk of failure and subsequent intubation and (2) fear that HFNC and NIV would aerosolize SARS-CoV-2 and unnecessarily expose the heath care team.1 We would soon find out that our thinking was flawed on both accounts.
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