TABLE 1.
Mean Durations of Essential Topics As a Function of Census and Patient Acuity
| Essential Topics | Low Acuity | % Change | p | High Acuity | % Change | p | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low Census | High Census | Low Census | High Census | |||||
| Patient information/history | 00:55 (00:45) | 00:40 (00:26) | –27.3% | NS | 00:49 (00:43) | 00:36 (00:28) | –26.5% | NS |
| Acute clinical status | 01:39 (01:07) | 00:50 (00:34) | –49.5% | 0.001 | 02:02 (01:26) | 01:10 (00:50) | –42.6% | 0.001 |
| Care plan | 02:52 (01:48) | 01:19 (00:45) | –54.7% | < 0.001 | 02:58 (02:09) | 02:30 (01:50) | –15.7% | NS |
NS = not significant.
Means reflect duration in minutes and seconds. sds are in parentheses. % change reflects the difference in patient encounter durations between low- vs high-unit census and patient acuity.