Immediate Bedding and Patient Satisfaction in a Pediatric Emergency Department.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Immediate bedding has been shown to increase efficiency in general emergency departments (EDs), but little has been published regarding its use in pediatric emergency medicine. OBJECTIVE: Our aims were to improve door-to-provider (DTP) times and patient satisfaction and to better define the relationships between throughput times and patient satisfaction in a pediatric ED. METHODS: On November 1, 2011, we changed to a new immediate bedding triage process in our academic, urban pediatric Level I trauma center. Both outcome and balancing measures were compared for the 6 months before and after this change in process. To evaluate the relationship between throughput times and patient satisfaction, we also analyzed data collected during a 32-month period. RESULTS: The median DTP decreased from 44 min in the pre period to 25 min in the post period (Cohen's r value = 0.29; p < 0.001). The percent DTP < 30 min also significantly improved (pre 31.8%, post 58.2%, odds ratio = 2.99; 95% confidence interval 2.87-3.12; p < 0.001). For the benchmark satisfaction question of "likelihood to recommend," there was also an improvement in the mean responses (pre 89.0, post 92.7, Cohen's r value = 0.10; p = 0.03). There were no significant differences in the balancing measures of nurse practitioner productivity and compliance with two nurse-initiated protocols. There was a weak inverse correlation between throughput times and satisfaction scores (Spearman's rank correlation -0.18; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Although immediate bedding improved the front-end efficiency in our ED, it cannot yet be considered as a "best practice" in pediatric emergency medicine.