Emergency department fast-track system

Nicola Cherry Chair & Professor Department of Public Health Sciences Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry University of Alberta ABOUT THE AUTHOR Philip Yoon, BMSc, MD, CCFP(EM), MBA, is Director of the CFPC Emergency Medicine Program in the Department of Family Medicine & Division of Emergency Medicine at the University of Alberta. [...] The purpose of this assessment report is to review current practice with ED fast-track systems and the evidence for the benefits of their use. [...] Physician and allied health care staff are distributed in the ED in a dynamic 4 EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT FAST-TRACK SYSTEM fashion depending on the needs of all the patients in the ED at any given time. [...] Such a situation occurred to a significant degree on two occasions during the study period, which caused the fast-track system to shut down for the rest of the day. [...] Results of the study revealed that the ED group had a mean length of stay of 161 minutes and the fast-track group had a mean length of stay of 94 minutes.