In addition, there are two measures submitted by ACEP that aim to improve care by standardizing pregnancy tests in females presenting with abdominal pain and anticoagulation therapy for patients with acute pulmonary emboli.

“These measures are just some we hope people will report on,” said Dr. Moorhead, the NQF panel cochair. “They’re clinically relevant issues for which data are readily available, so collecting them won’t place too much of a burden on EDs personnel.

“But they’re also [our attempt] to get EDs used to reporting data,” he said. “We anticipate more efforts to capture additional data of this sort down the line.”

Even Ostriches Can’t Miss the Signs

Joining Dr. Moorhead as cochair was Emergency Nurses Association member Suzanne Stone-Griffin, R.N., MSN. Assistant vice president of clinical services at the Hospital Corporation of America, Ms. Stone-Griffin admits to be being “passionate” about data collection. That’s one of the tools she’s using to address crowding and holding in her company’s 179 EDs, representing 5.5 million annual visits—close to% of the entire country’s annual total.

“At HCA, we took steps a year ago to measure every month how much crowding and holding is going on in our EDs,” Ms. Stone-Griffin said. “We already know these measures relate to patient satisfaction, and now we’re beginning to see studies of how throughput affects outcomes and quality of care.”

Like others, she recognizes that EDs often face circumstances beyond their control, “but if we’re going to shape emergency care, we need to know,” she said.

“Crowding is not going away. EDs own a piece of it, and should be at the table,” she noted. “But some of these metrics that are critically important to the function and care of the patient in our EDs are not within the control of the ED.”

And that might be where the new measures can help.

“There’s still a tremendous amount of work to be done in drilling down each standard, but they’re a good roadmap for any facility,” Ms. Stone-Griffin said. “If I were an ED director who hadn’t been addressing these priorities—in other words, an ostrich with my head in the sand—I would now know that potentially, this is what’s coming, here’s my roadmap for evolving standards of emergency care.

“We’re not playing the spin game,” she continued. “The data are what they are. What do we need to do to make that data change for better or for worse? We should all be working on that collectively—and sharing what we learn.”