Most Clinician Teammates in the ED Have Little Experience Working Together

Clinical care team performance is an important aspect of patient safety and outcomes. Emergency medicine is a specialty that by nature requires teaming of interdisciplinary providers who work in shifts. Researchers retrospectively reviewed scheduling data at an urban teaching hospital emergency department (ED) to determine how often different types of clinical care team members worked together during patient care over a 22-week period. The analysis included 30 attending physicians, 47 residents, 78 registered nurses, 23 patient care technicians, and 7 health unit coordinators.

During the study period, the mean number of hours per week that any two types of clinicians had worked together was 2. At any given hour, the proportions of clinicians…