Admission Decisions Made by Emergency Physicians Can Reduce the Emergency Department Length of Stay for Medical Patients
Table 2
Characteristics of the patients admitted to the medical department.
January–June 2016
January–June 2017
value
General demographics
Admitted to internal medicine
2,865
3,405
Males
1,598 (55.8)
1,883 (55.3)
0.706
Age (years)
66 (55–76)
68 (56–77)
<0.001
Acuity and severity
Median KTAS score
3 (3–4)
3 (3–4)
0.694
KTAS level 1 (immediate)
8 (0.3)
26 (0.8)
KTAS level 2
413 (14.4)
484 (14.2)
KTAS level 3
1,670 (58.3)
1,991 (58.5)
KTAS level 4
712 (24.9)
811 (23.8)
KTAS level 5 (may be delayed)
62 (2.3)
91 (2.7)
Missing KTAS
0 (0.0)
2 (0.1)
Admitted to ICU
359 (12.5)
446 (13.1)
0.503
APACHE 2 scores of those admitted to ICU
15.0 (10.5–21.0)
15.0 (10.8–20.0)
0.755
Primary outcome
ED LOS (minutes)
673 (347–1,369)
237 (166–364)
<0.001
Treatment quality variables
Hospital LOS (days)
8 (5–14)
8 (5–14)
<0.001
Interdepartmental transfer after admission
185 (6.5)
254 (7.5)
0.121
In-hospital mortality
201 (7.0)
242 (7.1)
0.888
ED: emergency department; 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.
