Specialist availability in emergencies: contributions of response times and the use of ad hoc coverage in New York State.
Am J Emerg Med. 2015 Dec 22;
Authors: Rabin E, Patrick L
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Nationwide, hospitals struggle to maintain specialist on-call coverage for emergencies. We seek to further understand the issue by examining reliability of scheduled coverage and the role of ad hoc coverage when none is scheduled.
METHODS: An anonymous electronic survey of all emergency department (ED) directors of a large state. Overall and for 10 specialties, respondents were asked to estimate on-call coverage extent and "reliability" (frequency of emergency response in a clinically useful time frame: 2hours), and use and effect of ad hoc emergency coverage to fill gaps. Descriptive statistics were performed using Fisher exact and Wilcoxon sign rank tests for significance.
RESULTS: Contact information was obtained for 125 of 167 ED directors. Sixty responded (48%), representing 36% of EDs. Forty-six percent reported full on-call coverage scheduled for all specialties. Forty-six percent reported consistent reliability. Coverage and reliability were strongly related (P<.01; 33% reported both), and larger ED volume correlated with both (P<.01). Ninety percent of hospitals that had gaps in either employed ad hoc coverage, significantly improving coverage for 8 of 10 specialties. For all but 1 specialty, more than 20% of hospitals reported that specialists are "Never", "Rarely" or "Sometimes" reliable (more than 50% for cardiovascular surgery, hand surgery and ophthalmology).
CONCLUSIONS: Significant holes in scheduled on-call specialist coverage are compounded by frequent unreliability of on-call specialists, but partially ameliorated by ad hoc specialist coverage. Regionalization may help because a 2-tiered system may exist: larger hospitals have more complete, reliable coverage. Better understanding of specialists' willingness to treat emergencies ad hoc without taking formal call will suggest additional remedies.
PMID: 26868050 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]