A long wait: barriers to discharge for long length of stay patients.

INTRODUCTION: Reducing long length of stay (LLOS, or inpatient stays lasting over 30 days) is an important way for hospitals to improve cost efficiency, bed availability and health outcomes. Discharge delays can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars per patient, and LLOS represents a burden on bed availability for other potential patients. However, most research studies investigating discharge barriers are not LLOS-specific. Of those that do, nearly all are limited by further patient subpopulation focus or small sample size. To our knowledge, our study is the first to describe LLOS discharge barriers in an entire Department of Medicine. METHODS: We conducted a chart review of 172 LLOS patients in the Department of Medicine at an academic tertiary care hospital and quantified the most frequent causes of delay as well as factors causing the greatest amount of delay time. We also interviewed healthcare staff for their perceptions on barriers to discharge. RESULTS: Discharge site coordination was the most frequent cause of delay, affecting 56% of patients and accounting for 80% of total non-medical postponement days. Goals of care issues and establishment of follow-up care were the next most frequent contributors to delay. CONCLUSION: Together with perspectives from interviewed staff, these results highlight multiple different areas of opportunity for reducing LLOS and maximising the care capacity of inpatient hospitals.

Patient feedback in the emergency department: A feasibility study of the Resident Communication Assessment Program (ReCAP).

OBJECTIVE: Resident physicians must develop competence in interpersonal and communication skills, but workplace-based assessment of these skills remains challenging. We explored the feasibility of the Resident Communication Assessment Program (ReCAP) for eliciting patient feedback about resident physician communication in the emergency department (ED). METHODS: This study is a prospective, observational study conducted in the ED of a university-based hospital from December 2018 through April 2019. ReCAP is a program that interviews patients prior to discharge from the ED using the Communication Assessment Tool (CAT). CAT consists of 14 Likert style questions and 3 open-ended questions for patient feedback about residents' communication. Open-text, narrative responses from patients were coded using a modified version of the Completed Clinical Evaluation Report Rating tool. RESULTS: We collected data from 42 subjects who completed the CAT, and provided 32 open-text, narrative responses about 20 resident physicians. Patient responses were overwhelmingly positive with 551/588 (94%) CAT responses scoring "Very Good," the highest category. Open-text, narrative comments analyzed using CCERR were unbalanced, favoring residents' strengths rather than areas for improvement. Patient comments offered more examples of strengths than weaknesses, and few subjects provided recommendations to improve resident performance. CONCLUSION: ReCAP represents a feasible method for eliciting patient feedback about resident communication skills in the ED. The CAT can be used to structure brief patient interviews by trained staff but generally elicits only positive feedback. Further studies are needed to identify more discriminatory assessment tools.

A Web-based Decision Tool to Estimate Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Risk in Emergency Department Patients.

Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) from a leaking aneurysm is a neurological emergency. SAH patients often present with headache-a common chief complaint among emergency department patients. If unrecognized, 70% of the patients with re-bleeds die and one third are left with neurological deficits. Therefore, it is critical to distinguish the signs and symptoms of SAH from benign causes of headache, perform the appropriate diagnostic tests and treat in a timely manner in order to reduce the disability and mortality associated with this condition. In patients with suspected SAH, traditional diagnostic strategies in the emergency department employ non-contrast computed tomography (CT) of the brain to detect blood in the subarachnoid space followed by lumbar puncture if there is a high clinical probability of aneurysmal bleed without any evidence of blood on CT scan. While the older generation CT scanners were less sensitive to blood detection in the subarachnoid space, recent advances in CT imaging have resulted in sensitivity approaching 100% for detection of blood in the subarachnoid space specifically within six hours of symptom onset. Therefore, the benefit of lumbar puncture is controversial when performed within the first six hours of symptom onset. Despite this, lumbar puncture is still commonly performed in the emergency department, exposing patients to unnecessary procedural risks. The objective of this research study is to develop a web-based risk calculator that estimates the risk of SAH based on time to emergency department presentation after symptom onset, physical findings and imaging characteristics with the goal of reducing unnecessary lumbar punctures in the emergency department. In this technical report, we describe the prototype calculator, the mathematical basis of the model and provide a link to the web-based prototype. In the future, we will refine the prototype, make it user-friendly to physicians, staff and patients and study its benefits in the emergency department.