Impact of sequential capacity building on emergency department organisational flow during COVID-19 pandemic: a quasi-experimental study in a low-resource, tertiary care centre

INTRODUCTION: A quasi-experimental study was conducted to estimate the impact of sequential emergency department (ED) capacity building interventions on key performance indicators such as patients’ length of stay (LOS) and wait time (WT) during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was achieved through augmenting personnel education and head count, space restructuring and workflow reorganisation. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: This study included 268 352 patients presenting from January 2019 to December 2020 at Indus Hospital and Health network Karachi, a philanthropic tertiary healthcare facility in a city of 20 million residents. A follow-up study was undertaken from January to December 2021 with 123 938 participants. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: These included mean and median ED-LOS and WT for participants presenting in different cohorts. The results of the pre-COVID-19 year 2019 (phase 0) were compared with that of the COVID-19 year, 2020 (phases 1–3 corresponding to peaks, and phase 4 corresponding to reduction in caseloads). The follow-up was conducted in 2021 to see the sustainability of the sequential capacity building. RESULTS: Phases 1, 2 and 3 had a lower mean adjusted LOS (4.42, 3.92 and 4.40 hours) compared with phase 0 (4.78 hours, p<0.05) with the lowest numbers seen in phase 2. The same held true for WT with 45.1, 23.8 and 30.4 min in phases 1–3 compared with 49.9 in phase 0. However, phase 4 had a higher LOS but a lower WT when compared with phase 0 with a p<0.05. CONCLUSION: Sequential capacity building and improving the operational flow through stage appropriate interventions can be used to off-load ED patients and improve process flow metrics. This shows that models created during COVID-19 can be used to develop sustainable solutions and investment is needed in ideas such as ED-based telehealth to improve patient satisfaction and outcomes.