Bedside Report from the Emergency Department.
Translational Research
March 31, 2016

The modern day emergency room is a department that is constantly busy. In the hustle of caring for patients, there are some details of the patient’s care that can be overlooked in a standard phone report to the accepting nurse. With this in mind, a change is needed so that there is an optimum patient outcome for each and every one of the people that walk through the doors of the emergency room and get admitted.
A1. The current practice in the emergency department that I work in when admitting a patient to the medical floor goes something like this. 1. Emergency department doctor enters orders for a consulting doctor to come and look at the patient to determine if an admission is warranted. 2. The consulted admission doctor assesses the patient and determines admission diagnosis. 3. Orders are written for admission. 4. Admission orders and chart is assessed to determine if the patient meets inpatient or observation criteria by case management registered nurses. 5. Once inpatient vs. observation status is determined, case management puts up an indicator on patient chart that bed can be ordered. 6. Primary RN requests bed from bed board using computerized bed request form. 7. Bed board assigns room to patient and places an indicator on patient chart with room number. 8. Primary nurse calls floor that patient is assigned to and asks to speak to nurse assigned to patient. 9. Phone report is given to accepting nurse. 10. Patient care tech transports patient to room. 11. Accepting nurse and CNA from the floor settle patient into room. 12. If accepting nurse has any questions, they call back down to the nurse they received report from.
A2.
This process is clunky and takes a lot of time. The average length of stay in