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Feeling the HEAT: Using Hourly Emergency Activity Tracking to demonstrate a novel method of describing activity and
Kendall J Bein1, Saartje Berendsen Russell1,2, David Muscatello3
1Emergency Department, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Objective:
The objective of the present study is to demonstrate a novel method of mapping ED activity to analyse patterns presentations, occupancy and performance trends.
Methods:
This was a retrospective, descriptive analysis of de-identified and linked ED presentations across NSW, Australia, over five calendar years, 2010-2014. It was undertaken as part of the Demand for Emergency Services Trend in Years 2010-2014 (DESTINY) study. The DESTINY project analysed 10.8 million presentations during 2010-2014. Hourly Emergency Activity Tracking (HEAT) maps were generated to visually represent and analyse the number of emergency arrivals to ED occupancy and proportion of patients leaving the ED within 4 h per hour of day across consecutive months of the year.
Results:
HEAT maps provided a means of visually representing ED activity to demonstrate hour-to-hour trends in presentations, occupancy and performance between 2010 and 2014. This analysis has shown that the most marked increase in presentations per hour has occurred during the 10.00-14.00 hour period, associated with an improvement in ED performance during the same period.
Conclusion:
HEAT maps may be used to facilitate further analyses of ED demand, patterns of patient presentations and patient flow and future health system redesign.
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