Emergency Physician Workforce Calculator

Introduction

Based on 2005 national data, as published by Camargo et al, this calculator determines the year the board-certified emergency physician workforce will be sufficient to staff all US emergency departments. Calculations are based on the following, admittedly conservative, assumptions:

• No change in the national ED visit volume (115 million ED visits per 2005 NEDI-USA).
• No change in the minimum number of full-time equivalent (FTE) ED physicians needed to staff all US emergency departments: 40,030 (assuming 5.35 FTE minimum).
• Each EP sees 2.8 patients/hour* and works 48 wks/year for 40 hrs/week, with 34% of their time spent on non-clinical requirements. Thus, the average EP sees 3,548 visits per year.

The calculator allows users to modify the following assumptions to calculate the year in which all US emergency departments will be staffed by board-certified emergency physicians.