Citation

Holleman DR, Bowling RL, Gathy C. J. Gen. Intern Med. 1996; 11(4): 237-239.

Affiliation

Medical Service, Lexington Veterans Affairs Medical Center, KY 40511, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8744882

Abstract

We studied the association between calendar and weather variables and daily unscheduled patient volume in a walk-in clinic and emergency department. Calendar variables (season, week of month, day of week, holidays, and federal check-delivery days) and weather variables (high temperature and snowfall) forecasted clinic volume, explaining 84% of daily variance and 44% of weekday variance. Staffing according to predicted volume could have decreased overstaffing from 59% to 15% of days, but would have increased understaffing from 2% to 18% of days. Models using calendar and weather data that forecast local utilization may help to schedule staffing for walk-in clinics and emergency departments more efficiently.

Language: en