The construction of the FTA was as an additional resource and was built adjacent to the old ED. However the staffing from a nursing and physician perspective was by realignment of the current resources, without new staff being recruited. At all times there were 2 full time nursing equivalents to staff the 7 FTA beds. The main ED is typically consultant driven with Western

trained staff. Junior Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical staff who worked in the main ED in 2005, were assigned to the FTA in 2006. Being Arabic speaking circumvented the use of a translator in this area. This study used a non-randomized, quasi-experimental, before-after intervention design with a historical control group to assess the performance of a FTA in an ED. Figure ​Figure11 depicts the disposition, sample sizes and triage Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical categories of the patients, whereas Figure ​Figure22 depicts the framework of this study’s design. A retrospective data analysis was performed

of all patients registered at the ED before (January 2005) and after (January 2006) the opening of a new FTA. Figure 1 A schematic summary of the number and disposition of study participants. Figure 2 Framework of this study’s Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical design. Operational Definitions of Terms For the purposes of this study the following definitions were used: Waiting time (Time to physician assessment) – defined as the time interval from registration to initial contact by a physician [17]. This is expressed in minutes. add to favorites Length of Stay (LOS)- defined as the time interval from registration to discharge disposition time [3,23,24]. This is expressed in minutes. For admitted patients: Arrival time to Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical admission orders. For discharged

patients: Arrival time to physical discharge. For transferred patients: Arrival time to transfer orders. Discharge Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Time – The time of physical departure of a discharged patient from the ED treatment area. Left without being seen (LWBS) rate – the number of patients who have undergone a triage assessment and code allocation but subsequently chose to leave before medical assessment [6]. This is expressed as a percentage of monthly ED visits. Monthly mortality rate – the number of patients each month who are pronounced dead in the ED [18]. This is expressed as a percentage of monthly ED visits. The following criteria were used for patient sampling: Inclusion criteria 1. All patients (pediatrics and adults) Batimastat presenting to the ED in January 2005 (pre-FTA) and January 2006 (post-FTA), which included: • CTAS 4 and 5 (non-urgent) patients for primary objective of the study. • CTAS 2 and 3 (urgent) patients for the secondary objective of the study. Exclusion criteria 1. CTAS 1 (emergent) patients as they are seen immediately. 2. Patients with missing data. Interval sampling of the population from identical months (January) was chosen to eliminate the confounding variable of seasonal variation.