ABSTRACT 889

Abstract

Background and aims: Emergency department crowding has become increasingly challenging for recent years. There is a strong correlation between quality of patient satisfaction and physician's willingness to work with the actual work capacity and endurance. Aims: Estimating the impact of physician work time and schedules on waiting time and complaints of the patients and patient-related violence against emergency department physicians. Methods: During 4-month periods in 2012 and 2013, medical records for patients who presented to Pediatric Emergency Department (PED) were reviewed. In the prior period, nine physicians were working in a period of 36 hours. Two physicians were continuously in PED, reminder was working out of ours. In the second period, the same number of physicians was working in a shift system of eight hours completely in PED. Waiting time and complaints of the patients and patient-related violence emergency department physicians were investigated. Results: In the prior period, 17869 patients were admitted to PED. The second period included 19570 patients. In both two groups, the majority of patients were infant age. The waiting time of the patients were 18.36 min (range 0-118 min) and 8.76 min (range 0-77 min) in the first and second group, respectively. Complaints of the patients and patient-related violence were significantly decreased. Conclusions: Working time arrangements may improve the actual work capacity and endurance of physician and increase patient satisfaction.