Date/Time
Date(s) - 26/02/2025
11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Stephenson Strobel, Adjunct clinical professor at McMaster, will present to our economics graduate students and faculty on Wednesday, February 26, in KTH 334!

Stephenson is a health economist and physician. He graduated from McMaster in 2010 for his Honours BA in Economics, going on to do his Ma at Queen’s and PhD at Cornell. Currently he practices as an ER Physician in Niagara, in addition to his economics work. His research interests include health economics, organizational economics of healthcare, physician behaviour and historical policy experiments in healthcare. He will be presenting, “Making Complex Information Simple. How do triage scores affect physician behaviour in the emergency department?“

Abstract

Doctors operate in high stakes environments where they need to make decisions quickly. This necessitates rapid collection and synthesis of information. Triage is one such mechanism that allows for speedy decisions. However, triage represents a simplification of information that could obscure important details of a patients case. Does triage information change how providers allocate resources for patients?

I examine a set of EDs that employ a five-point triage system. A patient’s score is based on arbitrary cut-offs of vital signs, which creates a regression discontinuity that quasi-randomly assigns a triage score. A worse triage score causes physicians to increase the time they treat patients by 25% from baseline, and the amount that they order imaging tests by 10%. Physicians increase the probability of specialist consultation and admission to hospital. These increased resources do not impact patient return to ED rates, suggesting no consequent improved patient health.

View Stephenson’s professional website.