Original article
Are wait times and length of stay in Alberta emergency departments for children’s mental health meeting national benchmarks? Trends from 2002 to 2008 Maryam Soleimani BSc MD(student)1, Simran Grewal MD FRCPC2, Rhonda Rosychuk PhD3,4, Amanda Newton PhD RN3 M Soleimani, S Grewal, R Rosychuk, A Newton. Are wait times and length of stay in Alberta emergency departments for children’s mental health meeting national benchmarks? Trends from 2002 to 2008. Paediatr Child Health 2013;18(6):e26-31. ObjeCTive: To describe wait times, treatment times and length of
stay (LOS) for pediatric mental health visits to emergency departments (EDs). MeTHOdS: The present study was a retrospective cohort analysis of mental health visits (n=30,656) made by children 5 h (18,19). To date, no published studies have examined wait and treatment times for pediatric mental health visits to help clarify and quantify ED LOS. The objective of the present study was to describe trends in key ED time intervals, wait times and treatment times, using an administrative dataset to clarify LOS during pediatric mental health visits across the province of Alberta. Wait times and LOS were compared with national benchmarks for the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) (3,20), an instrument used during ED triage assessment to estimate the level of clinical urgency for care (21,22). We hypothesized that longer wait times would be observed for visits assessed as less urgent according to triage level, that Paediatr Child Health Vol 18 No 6 June/July 2013
treatment times would be longer for visits triaged as more urgent, and that wait times and LOS would exceed national benchmarks.
MeTHOdS design and study population Data analyzed in the present retrospective cohort study were obtained from the Ambulatory Care Classification System (ACCS) provincial database created by Alberta Health and included visits between April 1, 2002 and March 31, 2008 to all EDs in Alberta. All cases in the ACCS database that met inclusion criteria for the present study were extracted: visits by pediatric patients (
Are wait times and length of stay in Alberta emergency departments for children’s mental health meeting national benchmarks? Trends from 2002 to 2008 Maryam Soleimani BSc MD(student)1, Simran Grewal MD FRCPC2, Rhonda Rosychuk PhD3,4, Amanda Newton PhD RN3 M Soleimani, S Grewal, R Rosychuk, A Newton. Are wait times and length of stay in Alberta emergency departments for children’s mental health meeting national benchmarks? Trends from 2002 to 2008. Paediatr Child Health 2013;18(6):e26-31. ObjeCTive: To describe wait times, treatment times and length of
stay (LOS) for pediatric mental health visits to emergency departments (EDs). MeTHOdS: The present study was a retrospective cohort analysis of mental health visits (n=30,656) made by children 5 h (18,19). To date, no published studies have examined wait and treatment times for pediatric mental health visits to help clarify and quantify ED LOS. The objective of the present study was to describe trends in key ED time intervals, wait times and treatment times, using an administrative dataset to clarify LOS during pediatric mental health visits across the province of Alberta. Wait times and LOS were compared with national benchmarks for the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) (3,20), an instrument used during ED triage assessment to estimate the level of clinical urgency for care (21,22). We hypothesized that longer wait times would be observed for visits assessed as less urgent according to triage level, that Paediatr Child Health Vol 18 No 6 June/July 2013
treatment times would be longer for visits triaged as more urgent, and that wait times and LOS would exceed national benchmarks.
MeTHOdS design and study population Data analyzed in the present retrospective cohort study were obtained from the Ambulatory Care Classification System (ACCS) provincial database created by Alberta Health and included visits between April 1, 2002 and March 31, 2008 to all EDs in Alberta. All cases in the ACCS database that met inclusion criteria for the present study were extracted: visits by pediatric patients (
