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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rapid Medical Evaluation Program Revolutionizes Treatment Process in Emergency Departments

Contact: Sarah Hay
800.476.1504
hays@cep.com

Program proven to reduce wait times, improve care, and increase patient satisfaction

(March 2006, Emeryville, California) –The Rapid Medical Evaluation (RME) Program has transformed thinking and processes concerning Emergency Medicine. First implemented in 2002 by California Emergency Physicians Medical Group (CEP), RME fundamentally changes the way the Emergency Department (ED) has operated in the past and has proven to be a successful methodology for decreasing patient wait time.

The complexities of delivering quality healthcare services increase every year, especially in California, where nurse ratio legislation is in force, and EDs must be able to adapt to intermittent surges in patient volume and acuity of a diverse mix of patients. Implementing innovative programs like RME is absolutely necessary to address these challenges in the ED. Given the combination of increasing patient volumes and limited space, CEP’s solution was to reengineer the patient treatment process from the moment the patient arrives in the ED.

With the Rapid Medical Evaluation process, all patients can be seen in a timely manner, usually close to or below 30 minutes from arrival. Before RME, when EDs were in their peak hours, patients could sit in the waiting room for hours until a bed became available. Hospitals experienced long wait times and high diversion hours. Now, lower acuity patients, in addition to higher risk cases, can be seen, treated, and discharged much more rapidly.

Under RME, the treatment process is fluid, adjusting based on demand and resource availability to ensure treatment is provided as quickly as possible. The treatment process begins immediately, including an initial assessment, ordering of labs and X-rays, and in some cases, rapid discharge without utilizing an ED bed. When available, patients are placed immediately in a bed and examined by a physician. RME affects everything from how patients are greeted to the registration process.

The RME approach has had a significant impact on CEP’s client EDs. Every CEP-contracted ED that has implemented RME has seen a substantial decrease in Time to Provider (TTP), with site reductions ranging from 10-80 minutes. CEP EDs have also dramatically decreased the rate of patients who left without being seen (LWBS). Patient satisfaction has continued to climb across CEP sites, and many of CEP’s practice locations are ranked in the top 10% of similar sites nationwide. The CEP experience has demonstrated a significantly positive economic impact to its client hospitals with the introduction of RME, which has been shown to be sustainable during the past three years of the introduction of this program.

The introduction of RME also benefits the hospitals and providers, allowing them to serve a larger number of patients in a shorter period of time with only minor costs involved in a physical expansion or alteration of the ED space – the program is a virtual expansion of the number of beds in CEP client hospital EDs! Even on a national scale, the results have an important impact on emergency medicine services, as JCAHO announced that hospitals must address ED overcrowding as a requirement for accreditation.

Says Prentice Tom, MD, CEP’s Chief Medical Officer, “Our findings reveal that the program has resulted in reduced wait times, more satisfied patients, a better work environment for medical providers, less duplication of work and, in turn, less wasted nursing time. As patient volumes and physician/nurse workload continue to increase in every Emergency Department, it’s crucial that we continue to streamline processes to achieve optimal performance."

Adds CEP’s President, Wesley A. Curry, MD, "The Rapid Medical Evaluation Program has proved successful at many sites and we continue to expand the program throughout the 56 Emergency Departments staffed by CEP. With the flu season upon us and implementation of nurse ratio regulations, our hospital clients who have implemented the RME Program have experienced a more efficient patient flow process, improved nurse morale, and reduced pressures of nurse recruitment and retention. The bottom line is, with RME, we put patients first and it makes a difference.”

While some small-volume sites already have short wait times and do not require the program, a number of CEP EDs have implemented RME and additional sites are in the planning stages. Successful implementation of the program has translated into almost 750,000 hours of decreased waiting time and suffering for patients at such sites!

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CEP was founded in 1975 and is a premier provider of physician staffing, management, and consulting services for 56 Emergency Department and Ambulatory Care Practices in California, Oregon, Georgia, and Arizona, caring for over 2,500,000 patients. For more information on CEP, visit their website at www.cep.com.