ED Workflow

Your task first and foremost is to take care of patients safely and effectively and to ensure their proper treatment and disposition. This initially will feel difficult in a busy emergency department that you are unfamiliar with. As time goes on you will grow into your role and this will feel much easier. As this becomes easier, you will be able to pick up more patients, carry a larger workload, and manage sicker and more complex diseases.

To help improve your ability to care for sick patients, you will need to become extremely efficient at the small nuances of our job that get in the way of direct patient care. This includes any time spent at the computer and anytime you find yourself doing things that you’ve already done before. It is important that you do not re-create the wheel every time you order lab work and imaging or every time you write up discharge instructions. It is also helpful to be efficient with your time, efficient with your movements, and good at decluttering your workflow.

Setting up “favorite” medication orders, saving your commonly used order sets, creating macros for extremely common yet low risk discharge instructions, (such as otitis media, viral, bronchitis, etc.), can cut down on time spent “re-creating the wheel “. Having macros for a “physical exam in Trauma”, a “physical exam for shortness of breath”, a “physical exam for pediatrics” etc. can also help cut down on time spent at the computer. Of course you’ll have to freehand type important pertinent positives, but having a template to work with goes a long way.

These are just a few common practices that efficient ED providers will employ to increase time spent seeing patients and decrease the other clutter. I have put together a Video presentation that can be found above. This PowerPoint is more in depth and goes over other common practices to improve efficiency.

Many other bonuses come with becoming good at the above. It will decrease your time doing notes after your shift, will allow you to get out on time routinely, and will improve your overall happiness on shift.