Dysphagia Management in the Emergency Department: Using Concept Mapping to Identify Actionable Change to Improve Services.

The study was done at a single hospital emergency department in Queensland, Australia, so the priorities may not fit other services or countries. The site used an expanded service model with proactive speech-language pathology screening, which is not common everywhere. Only 16 staff consented, and only 12 completed the sorting and rating tasks, so the views may not represent all emergency department or speech-language staff. Medical and executive staff were interviewed individually rather than in their professional groups, so they did not brainstorm together. The study took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, and workload and leave contributed to participant drop-out. The findings are staff perceptions of importance and changeability, not measured patient outcomes. Patients or carers were not included. The study did not test whether the identified changes improve services or patient care.

Funding was named as Queensland Health and The University of Queensland. The supplied text does not report author conflicts of interest beyond this funding statement.

Do not read the prioritised statements as evidence that changing documentation, education or referral processes improves dysphagia outcomes. The study recorded staff views of important and changeable service changes, not patient outcomes or tested interventions.