Exploration of clinicians' decision-making regarding transfer of patient care from the emergency department to a medical assessment unit: A qualitative study.

Background: Hospitals face immense pressures in balancing patient throughput. Medical assessment units have emerged as a commonplace response to improve the flow of medical patients presenting to the emergency department requiring hospital admission and to ease overcrowding in the emergency department. The aim of this study was to understand factors influencing the decision-making behaviour of key stakeholders involved in the transfer of care of medical patients from one service to the other in a large, tertiary teaching hospital in Queensland, Australia.

Effectiveness of clinical criteria in directing patient flow from the emergency department to a medical assessment unit in Queensland, Australia: a retrospective chart review of hospital administrative data.

Background: Medical Assessment Units (MAUs) have become a popular model of acute medical care to improve patient flow through timely clinical assessment and patient management. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a consensus-derived set of clinical criteria for patient streaming from the Emergency Department (ED) to a 15-bed MAU within the highly capacity-constrained environment of a large quaternary hospital in Queensland, Australia.

Methods: Clinically coded data routinely submitted for inter-hospital benchmarking purposes was used to identify the cohort of medical admission patients presenting to the ED in February 2016 (summer) and June 2016 (winter).

Geriatric syndromes in individuals admitted to vascular and urology surgical units.

Objectives: To document the incidence of geriatric syndromes (delirium, functional decline, falls, and pressure ulcers) in two surgical units and to determine the association between the occurrence of geriatric syndromes and admission type (elective vs nonelective), severity of surgery, and surgical subspecialty unit.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: One vascular surgical unit and one urology surgical unit in an Australian tertiary teaching hospital.