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Related Experiment Videos

Are these emergency department performance data real?

T E Locker1, S M Mason

  • 1School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, Regent Street, Sheffield S1 4DA, UK. t.locker@sheffield.ac.uk

Emergency Medicine Journal : EMJ
|June 24, 2006
PubMed
Summary
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Emergency department (ED) performance data in England may be manipulated, with a peak in patient wait times just before the 4-hour target. Analysis suggests over 50,000 episodes annually could be affected by data manipulation.

Area of Science:

  • Health Services Research
  • Healthcare Management
  • Public Health Policy

Background:

  • National health targets, such as the 4-hour maximum wait time in emergency departments (EDs), are crucial for monitoring healthcare quality.
  • Previous analyses indicated unusual patterns in patient wait times, specifically a peak just before the 4-hour benchmark.
  • This pattern raised concerns about potential manipulation of performance data within English EDs.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the potential manipulation of emergency department performance data in England.
  • To determine if the observed peak in patient wait times preceding the 4-hour target is indicative of data manipulation.
  • To quantify the potential scale of data manipulation in English EDs.

Main Methods:

  • Data were collected from 117 emergency departments across England.

Related Experiment Videos

  • A total of 616,067 patient episodes were included in the statistical analysis.
  • The study examined the distribution of patient wait times to identify anomalies around the 4-hour performance target.

    • Main Results:

    • The analysis revealed evidence suggesting manipulation of performance data in a subset of patient episodes.
    • While affecting a small proportion of individual episodes, the scale of this manipulation is significant.
    • An estimated over 50,000 patient episodes per year in English EDs may be impacted by data manipulation.

    Conclusions:

    • The findings suggest that performance data in English emergency departments may be subject to manipulation.
    • The observed anomalies around the 4-hour target warrant further investigation and potential intervention.
    • Addressing potential data manipulation is essential for accurate healthcare quality assessment and public trust.