Can sick children tell time?
Critically ill children present more uniformly throughout the day and do not have the same presentation patterns as ambulatory children. ED staffing should reflect this difference and not focus pediatric ED services simply on hours of peak pediatric visits.
This result is a surprise taking into consideration the development and discussion in Germany in recent years and in comparison to studies based on alternative approaches to efficiency measurement. The detailed analysis of the studies shows that because of weaknesses and a variety of differences in the methodological structure of the studies a really convincing answer regarding the first question ultimately cannot be derived from the results.