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Lazzarotto, Lyndsay

Purpose: The aim of this culminating project is to inform health care professionals on the role emergency nurse practitioners can play in decreasing emergency department overcrowding. Information from this project will be applied to a poster presentation and disseminated to health care professionals. Background: Emergency departments in many western nations are becoming increasingly overcrowded. Some emergency departments have added Nurse Practitioners as a method of coping with increasing patient volumes. Nurse Practitioners are working as providers in triage, fast track programs, and in short stay units within emergency departments. Though nurse practitioners have proven to be beneficial in many aspects of emergency care, the role is largely underutilized. Results: This review explored 14 primary studies and examined the Nurse Practitioner's impact on patient throughput outcomes such as door to provider rates, left without being seen rates, and length of stay. These studies found Nurse Practitioners employed in the emergency department have a positive impact on door to provider and left without being seen rates. The literature also demonstrated that emergency Nurse Practitioners did not demonstrate statistically significant differences in patients' length of stay within the emergency department.

Text

University of British Columbia. NURS 596

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0365567

Applied Science, Faculty of; Nursing, School of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/