assigning residents of emergency medicine to screen patients before admission: a strategy to overcome overcrowding

background: the overcrowded hospital is an unsafe one. overcrowding the emergency department (ed) results in increased patient suffering, prolonged waiting time, deteriorating level of service, and on occasion, a worsened medical condition or even death. objectives: this study proposes a strategy to overcome ed overcrowding. materials and methods: the proportion of acute area admitted patients to screened patients (a/s), and the proportion of patients who were finally transferred to inpatient wards (w/a) to those admitted in ed acute area were investigated during 6 consecutive months. emergency medicine residents were assigned to screen patients before ed admission and afterwards. results: the average a/s changed from 82.4% to 44.2% (p = 0.028), and the average w/a changed from 28.3% to 51.48% (p = 0.028) before and after screening patients respectively. the initiative resulted in 97 less patients in the acute area per day. conclusions: decreased number of acute area admitted patients, and increase w/a proportion showed that the initiative was successful in obviating ed overcrowding while provision of care to those most in need was not altered.