Linking Patient Alone Time and Provider Time to Staffing Levels and LOS at the Emergency Department: A RFID Based Study

Shivaram P. Arunachalam, Gomathi Marisamy, Mustafa Sir, David Nestler, Thomas Hellmich, Kalyan Pasupathy

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) technology use in health care services has been shown to save lives, prevents errors, save costs and increases security. Implementation of RFID technology has been challenged with high implementation costs, substantial gap between technology implementation costs and the RFID-enabled benefits, lack of common standard of usage/data analysis and low operational performance level in a harsh environment. Yet, there is a growing interest of RFID use in health care sector which has attracted many researchers to investigate potential opportunities in many specialties especially the Emergency Department (ED) where critical and quality care is sought for life saving service in a timely fashion. In this work, RFID data within the ED was used to quantify 'patient alone' time and 'total provider time' which is studied to establish the relationship between Length of Stay (LOS) and physician staffing levels. Surprisingly, results indicate that LOS has no relationship between patient alone time and provider time. With respect to physician staffing at the ED, more physicians within a LOS period leads to longer patient alone time. Average patient alone time increases initially and then significantly drops with increase in patient to physician ratio. These finding motivates further investigation on larger dataset for validation which can provide insights to strategize allocation of health care workers for more focused service to improve care, reduce LOS and subsequently reduce the cost and improve operating capacity of the ED.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics, ICHI 2016
EditorsWai-Tat Fu, Kai Zheng, Larry Hodges, Gregor Stiglic, Ann Blandford
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages102-105
Number of pages4
ISBN (Electronic)9781509061174
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 6 2016
Event2016 IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics, ICHI 2016 - Chicago, United States
Duration: Oct 4 2016Oct 7 2016

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics, ICHI 2016

Other

Other2016 IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics, ICHI 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityChicago
Period10/4/1610/7/16

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Health Informatics
  • Health(social science)
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Computer Science Applications

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Linking Patient Alone Time and Provider Time to Staffing Levels and LOS at the Emergency Department: A RFID Based Study'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this