“planning for the average day in emergency medicine is like pitching your tent at the average tide line, or walking across a river with an average depth of five feet, and wondering why we are in over our heads” Dr David Petrie

In Emergency Physician Speed How Fast is Fast Enough – Part I, Dr. David Petrie addressed the issue of physician productivity (patients per hour, or PPH), the many factors that influence how quickly emergency physicians can process patients, and some of the tradeoffs between speed and quality. He also discussed the processing rate of the entire ED and introduced the concepts of surge capacity and the effect of crowding on safety if the ED can’t keep up. In this follow-up blog, Dr. Petrie expands on the departmental aspects of throughput and safety, and calls on policy-makers to recognize the need to include surge capacity in planning efforts. He also makes some powerful arguments about the related issues of so-called ‘inappropriate visits’ and the changing role of the ED. In this post – Emergency Physician Speed Part 2 – Solutions to Physician Productivity , he also brilliantly dismantles some common myths about ED visits — and drivers of costs…

—Dr. Howard Ovens (Emergency Medicine Cases)

Read the whole article on Emergency Medicine Cases: Emergency Physician Speed Part 2 – Solutions to Physician Productivity