BACKGROUND The inability of the Nigeria's Accident and Emergency Departments (AED) to meet current demands is growing among the public and health care professionals. The data supporting perceptions of insufficient capacity are limited. Therefore, this study was intended to determine the prevalence, causes, and effects of overcrowding AEDs in Nigeria. MATERIALS AND METHODS This was a cross sec...

According to a position statement by the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP), emergency department (ED) overcrowding is a national problem and the lack of acute care beds has led most Canadian hospitals to frequently operate at unsustainable occupancy levels of greater than 90%. Although more apparent in the ED, overcrowding is a hospital-wide problem, and is particularly preval...

BACKGROUND Crowding occurs commonly in high volume emergency departments (ED) and has been associated with negative patient care outcomes. We aim to assess ED crowding in a median-low volume setting and evaluate associations with patient care outcomes. METHODS This was a prospective single-center study from November 14, 2016 until December 14, 2016. ED crowding was measured every 2 h by three...

BACKGROUND Throughput might be partially responsible for sub-optimum organisational and medical outcomes. The present study examined throughput and the challenges to ensuring optimum throughput in hospitals, and determined the effectiveness of a throughput intervention in reducing overcrowding in a public healthcare institution in Trinidad and Tobago. METHODS First, a literature review of thr...

OBJECTIVES To determine the perceptions of health care professionals and service providers with regard to emergency department (ED) overcrowding, including definitions of overcrowding, characteristics of an overcrowded ED, and causes of overcrowding, and secondarily to solicit potential solutions to the problem. METHODS Focus groups were conducted with front-line staff, physicians and manager...

INTRODUCTION An emergency department (ED) is considered to be "overcrowded" when the number of patients exceeds its treatment capacity and it does not have the conditions to meet the needs of the next patient to be treated. This study evaluates overcrowding in the emergency department of a hospital in Colombia. OBJECTIVE To compare the objective NEDOCS scale with a subjective evaluation by ED...

Background. The accuracy and utility of current Emergency Department (ED) crowding estimation tools remain uncertain in EDs with high annual volumes. We aimed at deriving a more accurate tool to evaluate overcrowding in a high volume ED setting and determine the association between ED overcrowding and patient care outcomes. Methods. A novel scoring tool (SONET: Severely overcrowded-Overcrowded-...

OBJECTIVE Access block refers to the situation where patients in the emergency department (ED) requiring inpatient care are unable to gain access to appropriate hospital beds within a reasonable time frame. We systematically evaluated the relationship between access block, ED overcrowding, ambulance diversion, and ED activity. METHODS This was a retrospective analysis of data from the Emergen...

Public transport smartcard data can be used to detect large crowds. By comparing smartcard data with statistics on habitual behavior (e.g. average by time of day), one can specifically identify non-habitual crowds, which are often problematic for the transport system. While habitual overcrowding (e.g. during peak hour) is well understood by traffic managers and travelers, non-habitual overcrowd...