What is Emergency Department

Patient lead time in emergency units is a critical factor for quality of care and patient safety. The objective of the chapter is a public emergency care hospital of a Brazilian city, important for its localization in the second more populated area of the city. Green risk patients constitute more than half of attendances and represent the largest volume of out-of-goal attendances in the hospital. Considering this analysis, it was conducted the process modelling in order to understand patient pathway and the main related problems. A list of undesirable effects was subsequently composed, allowing the construction of the current reality tree (CRT). With the root causes identified, the literature suggested fast track as an alternative to reduce the average waiting time in queue until the medical care. The method used for testing scenarios of fast track was discrete events simulation.