Re-designing emergency medicine physician staffing to augment emergency department capacity: A combined waterfall schedule and modified physician-in-triage model

The authors aimed to assess whether a combined physician waterfall schedule (PWS) and modified physician-in-triage (PIT) model could reduce the rate of patients leaving without being seen (LWBS) in a crowded emergency department (ED). Their study found that this intervention significantly decreased LWBS from 6.5% to 4.7%, while also maintaining patient safety and experience, despite an increase in patient boarding. This approach presents a practical solution to enhance ED capacity and efficiency.