A 360-degree performance evaluation of emergency medicine ward in Alzahra Hospital.

BACKGROUND In educational hospitals, in addition to providing care, emergency medicine department plays an important role in providing education and increasing the quality of care and education. This study was an endeavor to evaluate the performance of emergency medicine department in different areas such as education, service provision and interaction with other departments. METHODS This was a descriptive cross-sectional study performed as a 360-degree evaluation. The stakeholders taking part in this evaluation included residents, interns, attendants, administrators, nurses, and patients. Particular questionnaires for each group was developed based on the data achieved in the focus groups. Structured interviews were used to collect data from patients. Patients' medical files were investigated in order to extract performance indices of emergency medicine department. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square, and t-tests by SPSS. RESULTS Based on the achieved data, patients' waiting time for the first visit of the emergency physician was 13.18 minutes in average. The mean of outpatients' waiting time (29.82 minutes) was higher than that of patients requiring hospitalization. In most cases (79%), similar first and final diagnoses were made. In addition, 93.5% of patients hospitalized in the emergency ward were highly satisfied with services received from the specialists while 6.5%were averagely satisfied. The highest performance scores to the emergency medicine department were given by the interns with the mean of 4.24 out of 5 performance. CONCLUSION The results of the emergency department evaluation by different groups as well as indices showing the performance of this department revealed its overall performance in educational, clinical, and interactional areas as good. The findings of this study can be applied in Alzahra Hospital to promote the positive points and amend the negative points.