ed-informatics.org

Data mining has been a topic of interest to businesses and researchers for many decades. For physicians and other clinicians, and those designing systems for clinicians, data mining has been of less interest. Yes, you can use data mining to predict the volume of patients in your ED by day and hour. Yes, you can […]

Faced with a long dinner menu, it’s hard to decide what to order. (Even with a medium-sized menu, my wife always says “You go ahead and order, I haven’t decided yet.” But that’s extreme.) It’s not just an urban legend. There are scientific studies that demonstrate it. The study When Choice is Demotivating by Sheena […]

As of 2012, a new metric for ED throughput is physician contact time – with the caveat that assigning a physician name on a tracking system, or the time of the first orders, is not adequate to measure this. Surprised? Some docs put their name on the patient as soon as the patient arrives in […]

“Out of sight, out of mind.” Ever heard the one about the early translation program that converted this aphorism into Chinese and then back? It came out as “invisible idiot.” Regardless, “out of sight, out of mind” is a good general psychological principle. In any nuclear power plant control station, air traffic control center, AWACS plane, aircraft cockpit, or any busy and confusing medical setting whether […]

“This job would be great if I didn’t have to chart.” Physicians say this all the time. One way to not have to chart (much) is to work with a Federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) team. Although the National Disaster Medical System now has an electronic medical record (EMR) system, it used to just […]