Admission Decisions Made by Emergency Physicians Can Reduce the Emergency Department Length of Stay for Medical Patients
Table 1
Characteristics of the patients who visited the emergency department.
January–June 2016
January–June 2017
value
General demographics
Total ED visit
15,326
15,031
Males
8,325 (54.3)
8,213 (54.6)
0.575
Age (years)
53 (28–68)
55 (32–69)
<0.001
Time to the first CPOE (minutes)
16.5 (8.8–28.9)
10.8 (5.3–20.2)
<0.001
Acuity and severity
Median KTAS score
3 (3–4)
4 (3–4)
<0.001
KTAS level 1 (immediate)
86 (0.6)
146 (1.0)
KTAS level 2
1,345 (8.8)
1,283 (8.5)
KTAS level 3
6,800 (44.4)
5,612 (37.3)
KTAS level 4
6,303 (41.1)
6,697 (44.6)
KTAS level 5 (may be delayed)
649 (4.2)
1,152 (7.7)
Missing KTAS
143 (0.9)
141 (0.9)
Total admission
5,957 (38.9)
6,432 (42.8)
<0.001
Admission to ICU
1,010 (16.9)
1,229 (19.0)
0.002
APACHE 2 scores of those admitted to the ICU
11.0 (7.0–18.0)
12.0 (7.0–18.0)
0.095
ED workforce and timeliness
Faculty and attending physicians
5
6
Residents
7
6
Intern doctors
5
5
ED: emergency department; CPOE: computerized physician order entry; KTAS: Korean Triage and Acuity Scale; APACHE: Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation Score; ICU: intensive care unit; LOS: length of stay. The data are represented by numbers (percentages) or medians (interquartile ranges), and the chi-squared test and the Wilcoxon’s rank sum test were used to obtain the P values for the changes in the numbers and medians, respectively.
