PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jodie Sabin
AU  - Waleed Khan
AU  - Christian P Subbe
AU  - Marc Franklin
AU  - Iman Abulela
AU  - Anwar Khan
AU  - Hassan Mohammed
TI  - ‘The time it takes…’ How doctors spend their time admitting a patient during the acute medical take
AID  - 10.7861/clinmedicine.16-4-320
DP  - 2016 Aug 01
TA  - Clinical Medicine
PG  - 320--324
VI  - 16
IP  - 4
4099  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/16/4/320.short
4100  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/16/4/320.full
SO  - Clin Med2016 Aug 01; 16
AB  - Patient safety depends on adequate staffing but the number of doctors required for safe staffing for medical emergencies is not known. We measured the duration of the admission process for patients seen by medical teams in emergency departments (EDs) and acute medical units. History taking and examination by a core medical trainee took 22 minutes for a patient referred from the ED and 21 minutes for a patient referred from primary care. A complete admission clerking with prescription and ordering of investigations ranged from a mean of 15 minutes for a consultant in acute medicine to a mean of 55 minutes for a foundation year 1 trainee. The duration of post-take ward rounds also showed significant variability.Our data can be used to model staffing patterns if combined with information about admission numbers and local set up.