Junior doctors at triage improve patient flow in the ED

Introducing a novel model of care to the emergency department may provide significant reductions in key performance indicators, such as patient length of stay, or the National Emergency Access Target (NEAT).

In previous studies, researchers have found that rostering a physician to work at triage can lead to significant improvements on a range of metrics, including time to treatment, patient length of stay and rate of patients who left before receiving treatment. However, in a regional hospital where staffing numbers and budgets are under pressure this model may not be possible.

The objective of this study is to implement a novel model of care at triage in the Hervey Bay Hospital Emergency Department. For a trial period of three months, junior doctors (PHO/registrar level) will be rostered to work at triage on alternate day shifts. A range of outcome measures will be compared with day shifts when junior doctors are not rostered at triage. This model may be relevant for other regional emergency departments.