Impact of process improvements on measures of emergency department efficiency.

Objective: To study the operational impact of process improvements on emergency department (ED) patient flow. The changes did not require any increase in resources or expenditures.

Methods: This was a 36-month pre- and post-intervention study to evaluate the effect of implementing process improvements at a community ED from January 2010 to December 2012.

Process Improvements to Reform Patient Flow in the Emergency Department.

Emergency departments (ED) function to diagnose, stabilize, manage and dispose patients as efficiently as possible. Although problems may be suspected at triage, ED physician input is required at each step of the patient journey through the ED, from diagnosis to disposition. If we want timely diagnosis, appropriate treatment and great outcomes, then ED processes should connect patients and physicians as quickly as possible.

Borrowed philosophy: bedside physicalism and the need for a sui generis metaphysic of medicine.

The character of medicine has changed over the last 100 years such that medicine is more interested in diseases than the people who suffer from them. Despite notable efforts to address this, the medical humanities do not challenge doctors' fundamental view of the world. Students adopt a metaphysic of physicalism during basic science training that gets carried into medical training.