Talk-time in the emergency department: duration of patient-provider conversations during an emergency department visit (original) (raw)

Analyses of patient flow through the emergency department (ED) typically focus on metrics such as wait time, total length of stay (LOS), or boarding time. Less is known about how much interaction a patient has with clinicians after being placed in a room, or what proportion of their in-room visit is also spent waiting. Our aim was to assess the proportion of time that a patient spent in conversation with providers during an ED visit. Seventy-four audio-taped encounters of patients with low-acuity diagnoses were analyzed. Recorded ED visits were edited to remove downtime. The proportion of time the patient spent in conversation with providers (talk-time) was calculated as follows: (talk-time = [edited audio time/{LOS - door-to-doctor time}]). Participants were 46% male; mean age was 41 years (standard deviation 15.7 years). Median LOS was 126 min (interquartile range [IQR] 96 to 163 min), median time in a patient care area was 76 min (IQR 55 to 122 min). Median time in conversation w...