Patient and Clinician Perspectives on Collaborative Work in the Emergency Department

Older adults who present to the emergency department (ED) sometimes have a negative patient experience. Collaboration between care partners, patients and ED staff is one way to improve the patient experience in the ED, but patient, care partner, and ED clinician perspectives on collaborative work have yet to be studied. The objective of our exploratory study is to compare patient, care partner and clinician perspectives on collaborative work that occurs in the ED. Using data collected from patients, care partners, and ED clinicians during the design of an ED patient journey map, we identified four instances where patients, care partners, and clinicians expressed their perspectives regarding collaborative work. We found that patients, care partners and ED clinicians often had differing perspectives about collaborative work in the ED. For instance, during the intake process, patients report being “checked” by ED clinicians, whereas ED clinicians view this as being “seen”. Patients, care partners, and ED clinicians also shared similar perspectives, such as the importance of an ED care team. Older adult patients, care partners and ED clinicians have some similar and some different perspectives of patient-clinician collaboration in the ED that may affect how they interact with each other and the resulting patient experience.