A multicentre, qualitative evaluation of the impact of advertised Emergency Department (ED) wait time on ED patients, potential patients and other stakeholders.

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: Emergency Medicine; Public Health - Health service research; Published Emergency Department wait times; Private Emergency Medicine; Emergency medicine - Other emergency care

• Registration Number: ACTRN12619000665134
• Lead Sponsor: Dr Michael Ben-Meir

Brief Summary

Not available

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Results First Posted: 1900-01-01
• Study Start: 2019-05-03
• Last Update Posted: 26 August 2019

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 50

Inclusion Criteria

•Convenience sample based on researcher availability, with purposive sampling of a variety of times and days of the week.
•Patients: Current emergency medicine patients waiting for care or waiting for completion of emergency medicine care (at facilities that have published wait times and those that don’t)
•Paramedics: Paramedics waiting to offload patients from ambulance stretchers to beds in emergency departments
•All patients (or their guardians/support persons) and paramedics who are potentially eligible for inclusion in the study will be invited to participate.

Exclusion Criteria

•Any patient/paramedic or community representative who does not consent
•Any patient deemed incapable of consent due to illness, capacity or communication barriers
•Any patient who exhibits significant distress
•Any patient whose treatment would be impeded or delayed by the interview (as judged by the patient, interviewer or clinical staff)
•Any paramedic who is required to attend to a patient rather than undertake the interview, based on patient needs (note 2 paramedics accompany a patient, usually one attends to the patient whilst the other is available to talk for short periods of time).

Study & Design

• Study Type: Observational
• Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Consumer perspective of ED wait time as assessed by semi-structured interview which will be recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed[Assessed at single point interview during ED visit (cross-sectional study) or at single point during volunteer community interviews]

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Paramedic perspective on what constitutes an ED wait time as assessed by semi-structured interview which will be recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed.[Assessed at single point interview during ED visit (cross-sectional study)];ED staff experience of advertised ED wait times as assessed by semi-structured interview which will be recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed.[Assessed at single point interview during ED visit (cross-sectional study)];Safety profile of advertised ED wait times as assessed by semi-structured interview with health administrator which will be recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed.[Assessed at single point interview during ED visit (cross-sectional study)];ED Wait times display preference of paramedics as assessed by study-specific interview which will be recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed.[Assessed at single point interview during ED visit (cross-sectional study)]