Emergency department crowding: an overview of reviews describing measures causes, and harms.
Intern Emerg Med
; 18(4): 1137-1158, 2023 06.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36854999
ABSTRACT
Crowding in Emergency Departments (EDs) has emerged as a global public health crisis. Current literature has identified causes and the potential harms of crowding in recent years. The way crowding is measured has also been the source of emerging literature and debate. We aimed to synthesize the current literature of the causes, harms, and measures of crowding in emergency departments around the world. The review is guided by the current PRIOR statement, and involved Pubmed, Medline, and Embase searches for eligible systematic reviews. A risk of bias and quality assessment were performed for each review, and the results were synthesized into a narrative overview. A total of 13 systematic reviews were identified, each targeting the measures, causes, and harms of crowding in global emergency departments. Key among the results is that the measures of crowding were heterogeneous, even in geographically proximate areas, and that temporal measures are being utilized more frequently. It was identified that many measures are associated with crowding, and the literature would benefit from standardization of these metrics to promote improvement efforts and the generalization of research conclusions. The major causes of crowding were grouped into patient, staff, and system-level factors; with the most important factor identified as outpatient boarding. The harms of crowding, impacting patients, healthcare staff, and healthcare spending, highlight the importance of addressing crowding. This overview was intended to synthesize the current literature on crowding for relevant stakeholders, to assist with advocacy and solution-based decision making.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Aglomeración
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Servicio de Urgencia en Hospital
Tipo de estudio:
Etiology_studies
/
Overview
/
Prognostic_studies
Límite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Año:
2023
Tipo del documento:
Article