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Should you close your waiting room? Addressing ED overcrowding through education and staff-based participatory research.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Tanabe, P; Gisondi, MA; Medendorp, S; Engeldinger, L; Graham, LJ; Lucenti, MJ
Published in: Journal of emergency nursing
August 2008

The purpose of this project was to develop operational criteria to "close the ED waiting room".A prospective, staff-based participatory research model was used. Nurses at an urban ED with 70,000 visits attended a four-hour workshop concerning ED overcrowding. The workshops consisted of two parts, (1) educational sessions that reviewed key concepts of ED overcrowding, followed by (2) discussions of a proposal to "close the waiting room" as a means to decrease overcrowding. During the discussions, nurses were asked to develop guidelines to safely and consistently "close the waiting room." The investigators defined the waiting room as "closed" when (1) ambulatory patients could be taken directly to a room or hallway space for bedside triage, registration, and initiation of care, or (2) patients were triaged in the waiting room and then taken directly to a care space for registration at the bedside. The primary outcome measure of the project was the development of guidelines to open (use) or close (not use) the ED waiting room.Seventy three of 100 nurses participated in the workshops. ED waiting room closure criteria were developed as 4 "Questions to Guide the Use of the Waiting Room." These dichotomous (yes/no) questions reflected issues of available staff, available care space (traditional ED bed spaces and designated hall spaces), patient acuity, and additional surge capacity.Staff-based participatory research was an effective method to design an operational change. Nurses developed four explicit criteria describing when the waiting room should be closed.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Journal of emergency nursing

DOI

EISSN

1527-2966

ISSN

0099-1767

Publication Date

August 2008

Volume

34

Issue

4

Start / End Page

285 / 289

Related Subject Headings

  • Waiting Lists
  • Triage
  • Total Quality Management
  • Time Factors
  • Systems Theory
  • Safety Management
  • Prospective Studies
  • Outcome Assessment, Health Care
  • Nursing Staff, Hospital
  • Nursing Methodology Research
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Tanabe, P., Gisondi, M. A., Medendorp, S., Engeldinger, L., Graham, L. J., & Lucenti, M. J. (2008). Should you close your waiting room? Addressing ED overcrowding through education and staff-based participatory research. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 34(4), 285–289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jen.2007.08.009
Tanabe, Paula, Michael A. Gisondi, Sara Medendorp, Laurie Engeldinger, Lisa J. Graham, and Martin J. Lucenti. “Should you close your waiting room? Addressing ED overcrowding through education and staff-based participatory research.Journal of Emergency Nursing 34, no. 4 (August 2008): 285–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jen.2007.08.009.
Tanabe P, Gisondi MA, Medendorp S, Engeldinger L, Graham LJ, Lucenti MJ. Should you close your waiting room? Addressing ED overcrowding through education and staff-based participatory research. Journal of emergency nursing. 2008 Aug;34(4):285–9.
Tanabe, Paula, et al. “Should you close your waiting room? Addressing ED overcrowding through education and staff-based participatory research.Journal of Emergency Nursing, vol. 34, no. 4, Aug. 2008, pp. 285–89. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.jen.2007.08.009.
Tanabe P, Gisondi MA, Medendorp S, Engeldinger L, Graham LJ, Lucenti MJ. Should you close your waiting room? Addressing ED overcrowding through education and staff-based participatory research. Journal of emergency nursing. 2008 Aug;34(4):285–289.
Journal cover image

Published In

Journal of emergency nursing

DOI

EISSN

1527-2966

ISSN

0099-1767

Publication Date

August 2008

Volume

34

Issue

4

Start / End Page

285 / 289

Related Subject Headings

  • Waiting Lists
  • Triage
  • Total Quality Management
  • Time Factors
  • Systems Theory
  • Safety Management
  • Prospective Studies
  • Outcome Assessment, Health Care
  • Nursing Staff, Hospital
  • Nursing Methodology Research