Abstract:
Overcrowding the Emergency Department (ED) is a serious problem in an urban, academic tertiary care that reduces the quality of care and safety of the patients. One suggestion to decrease the length of stay in the Emergency Department (EDLOS) is to implement the Emergency Room Observation Unit (EROU). This study was a retrospective pre-post observation and evaluation study without control research with the aims of evaluating outcome of the means EDLOS, rate of prolonged EDLOS of more than 4 hours, prolonged EDLOS of more than 8 hours, hospital admission and ED discharge for home for heart failure with non-high risk patients before and after the implementation of the EROU. The medical records and data records off all the adult patients who visited the ED of King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital (KCMH) from October 1, 2010 through September 30, 2014 were retrospectively reviewed. One thousand five hundred and eighteen charts were reviewed with 950 charts (63.0%) included for analysis. Chi square, Survival analysis by Kaplan-Meire and Log rank test were used for data analysis. The Implementation of the EROU service for heart failure with non-high risk patients resulted in a decreased overall means EDLOS from 12 hours and 40 minutes to 10 hours and 53 minutes with a statistical significance (p-value = 0.004).Whereas the means of EDLOS was unchanged for both admitted and discharged for home patients .The percentage of prolonged EDLOS of more than 4 hours decreased from 51.2% to 48.8% with a statistical significance (Odd Ratio [OR] =0.48; p-value <0.001). The percentage of the prolonged EDLOS of more than 8 hours decreased from 57.8% to 45.9% with a statistical significance (OR=0.62; p-value < 0.001).The percentage of heart failure patients discharged for home from the ED decreased from 67.7% to 49.1% with a statistical significance (OR=0.46; p-value < 0.001) .Whereas the percentage of hospital admission was unchanged. In conclusion, the implementation of the EROU service could improve the patient flow, quality and safety for heart failure with non-high risk patients in the ED.