To stem the growing problem of emergency department (ED) crowding, the Academy has joined eight other health care organizations to endorse the Emergency Nurses Association’s Consensus Statement: Definitions for Consistent Emergency Department Metrics, www.ena.org/media/PressReleases/Documents/07-13-11_DefinitionsED_Metrics.pdf.
The metrics were created as a first step toward addressing the ED’s role as an entry point to patient care. Previously, organizations and associations established ED metrics individually without agreed-upon standard definitions.
The statement addresses six key definitions: what an ED is; ED arrival time, ED offload time; ED transfer of care from prehospital providers time; ED triage time; and ED treatment space time.
The next step is to create benchmarks that will lead to the development of strategies to help reduce ED crowding and boarding.
