Response of consultants to the emergency department: a preliminary report.
STUDY OBJECTIVE: To determine the timeliness of response of consultants called to evaluate patients in the emergency department of a community hospital. METHODS: Consultation requests from an ED located in a medium-sized community hospital were studied for a 1-month period. Data collected included name and specialty of the consultant, urgency of patients' conditions, times of pages, and times of consultants' responses and arrival in the ED. RESULTS: Two hundred forty-one consultations were requested and 199 data forms relating to 21 staff physicians were analyzed. Mean number of pages required to reach a consultant was 1.5+/-.4. Mean time from the first page to telephone response was 8+/-6 minutes and from first page to ED arrival was 42+/-23 minutes. Mean time from the first page to the consultant's arrival in the ED was significantly shorter for emergency (17+/-10 minutes) than for urgent or nonurgent patients (50+/-41 and 41+/-23 minutes, respectively). There were wide variations in individual patterns of response; the 7 fastest consultants had a mean first page to arrival time of 25+/-10 minutes, and for the slowest 5 consultants the time was 56+/-24 minutes. CONCLUSION: Response times of consultants to the ED vary depending on the urgency of the patient's condition and individual behavior patterns.