11 Dawn Patrol Patient Follow‐up Protocol

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Follow‐up of patients after their emergency department course provides a rich educational experience for residents, but due to time and logistical constraints, is infrequently performed in a scheduled and rigorous manner. The Dawn Patrol initiative was added to our residency curriculum to facilitate and protocolize patient follow‐up for education and feedback on patient care. It also strives to improve communication with inpatient services, and provides a means of collection for morbidity / mortality and risk management cases. Our process functions by charging the clinical senior resident who is going off‐shift, with reviewing the admission record for the past 24 hours. Interesting, clinically important, or cryptic case presentations are selected via our electronic medical record for review at the end of Morning Report. Generally, 1‐3 new cases are selected for review each weekday morning. These cases are then recorded on a dry erase board in the Morning Report room, and the cases are followed until inpatient discharge, or are no longer of clinical interest. Visits to the inpatient wards are encouraged. Patient callbacks of outpatients are also eligible for inclusion. The cases are updated daily, and generally 5‐10 cases are reviewed per day in approximately 10 minutes. The staff member attending Morning Report is responsible for providing bulleted teaching points on each case. The Dawn Patrol patient follow‐up initiative seeks to improve emergency medicine resident education by facilitating and protocolizing patient follow‐up, and provides real‐time feedback on patient care performed in the emergency department.