The model of the clinical practice of emergency medicine

doi:10.1067/mem.2001.115495

Annals of Emergency Medicine

Volume 37, Issue 6, June 2001, Pages 745-770

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https://doi.org/10.1067/mem.2001.115495 Get rights and content

Abstract

[Hockberger RS, Binder LS, Graber MA, Hoffman GL, Perina DG, Schneider SM, Sklar DP, Strauss RW, Viravec DR, Koenig WJ, Augustine JJ, Burdick WP, Henderson WV, Lawrence LL, Levy DB, McCall J, Parnell MA, Shoji KT. The model of the clinical practice of emergency medicine. Ann Emerg Med. June 2001;37:745-770.]

Section snippets

Preamble

In 1975 the American College of Emergency Physicians and the University Association for Emergency Medicine (now the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine; SAEM) conducted a practice analysis of the emerging field of Emergency Medicine. This work resulted in the development of the current Core Content of Emergency Medicine, a listing of common conditions, symptoms, and diseases seen and evaluated in emergency departments. The Core Content listing has subsequently been revised 4 times,

Overview

There are multiple components of The Model of the Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine. The components of the Model are given in 2 complementary documents: (1) the Matrix, and (2) the Listing of Conditions and Components.

Matrix

The Matrix is organized along 2 principal dimensions: Patient Acuity and Physician Tasks (Table 1).

. Matrix of physician tasks by patient acuity.

Physician Tasks	Patient Acuity
Physician Tasks	Critical	Emergent	Lower Acuity
Pre-hospital care
Emergency stabilization
Performance of focused history and physical examination
Modifying factors
Professional issues
Diagnostic studies
Diagnosis
Therapeutic interventions
Pharmacotherapy
Observation and reassessment
Consultation and disposition
Prevention and education
Documentation

Listing of conditions and components

The Listing of Conditions and Components contains the fundamental, or core, patient conditions that present to emergency departments. The listing is based on data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during 1995-1996. The CDC data were collected from 40,000 emergency department records statistically representative of 90.3 million emergency department visits in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan short-stay or general

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^☆: Note from the Core Content Task Force II:

^☆☆: The Core Content Task Force II endorses The Model of the Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine in its current version. However, the Task Force’s endorsement does not extend to future documents resulting from this original work.

^★: This article also appears in the June 2001 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine.

^★★: ACEP policy statement no. 4297. Also available at www.acep.org.

^♢: Address for reprints: American Board of Emergency Medicine, 3000 Coolidge Road, East Lansing, MI 48823; 517-332-4800, fax,517-332-2234.

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