Vision Statement of the ED Benchmarking Alliance

Identification, development, and implementation of future best practices in Emergency Medicine.

Mission of the ED Benchmarking Alliance

The Emergency Department is a site of intense service challenges, unpredictable care loads and expectations, and cost challenges. In the healthcare service industry, all providers are obligated to a continuous process of quality improvement and cost-effectiveness. To maintain a leadership role in local communities, it is essential to apply the best service concepts in the industry.

The Emergency Department Benchmarking Alliance(EDBA) was created for those ED administrators interested in the application of management and service concepts. The Alliance was founded to investigate issues not adequately addressed by other associations. It is a group of Emergency Department administrators: physicians, nursing, and management. The chair is Bruce Janiak, MD, Director of the Emergency Department at The Toledo Hospital in Ohio. It is appropriate that Dr. Janiak lead this group, as he was the first physician in the nation to graduate from an Emergency Medicine residency program.

The group is now composed of about 25 of the largest ED’s in the central part of the country with a high-quality mission. We share a dedication to quality medical care, patient satisfaction, medical education, and community service. Each Alliance member is asked to host a meeting in their city, with the group having the opportunity to tour the host hospital and its ED. The host institution pays the meeting site and meal expenses, and the rotation of meetings keeps the cost burden well distributed over the group. Alliance members can bring any personnel from their site that will benefit from attendance and participation.

The Benchmarking Alliance has conducted annual conferences for outside audiences. These conferences feature national speakers on topics relating to Emergency Department best practices. The conference agenda also features sessions on the concept of benchmarking, so that attendees can develop local approaches to this process. The conference tuition fees have been intentionally kept at reasonable levels, to allow the attendance of many mid-level managers and ED staff members.

The EDBA seeks regular participation from colleagues engaged with us in the work of making our EDs function well for our patients, communities, hospitals and medical staffs. We envision an organization where the sense of ownership for the organization is strong not only among physicians, but also among all who work in the ED. We envision an organization that coordinates operations research and health services research intended to identify best practices: