Individualized throughput metric reports for emergency medicine residents: Impact on time to disposition and resident perceptions.

Background: Research suggests that quantitative metric reports can improve the clinical performance of emergency physicians; however, few studies have examined their effects on physicians in training. The primary study objective was to assess the effects of providing emergency medicine (EM) residents with individualized throughput metrics with regard to emergency department (ED) disposition times. Methods: We performed a single-center, retrospective, observational study from January 2021 to December 2022 examining ED disposition times before and after providing upper-level EM residents individualized throughput metrics. Residents received monthly reports of three specific metrics averaged over the preceding 6 months: (1) median time from room to discharge order (Rm2Dc), (2) median time from return of all results to discharge order (Rlts2Dc), and (3) median time from room and to consult order for hospitalization (Rm2Hosp). Overall mean values of the three metrics before and during metric sharing were compared via independent Results: A total of 35 unique residents were included in the analysis. Overall, mean disposition times were not significantly different before and during reporting of metrics: Rm2Dc (154.8 min vs. 148.9 min, Conclusions: Overall, individualized throughput metrics were not correlated with decreased average times to ED disposition for upper-level EM residents; however, in the subset of hospitalized patients seen by PGY-3 residents, we observed a mean decrease of 21.7 min to consultation.