Staff in the psychiatric emergency room (PER) have demanding jobs requiring a complex balance between the needs and safety of the individual and the community, systemic resources, and job responsibilities while providing timely, effective care. Little research exists concerning day-to-day work activities of PER staff, their interaction, and their perceptions of their work. This study explored the work of PER staff and the organisational context of the PER work setting.Observations of staff were conducted in the public spaces of a public urban PER using two observational techniques. The first was designed to measure the types of work activities staff engaged in and the time spent in these work activities (work task data). The second technique was the gathering of observational data by a peripheral-member-researcher (participant observation data). Analyses were conducted of both the work task and participant observation data. Results indicate that most PER staff time is spent in administrative and phone tasks, while less than a third is spent on direct clinical work. Four important issues for PER work were identified: a workload that is unmanageable, managing the unmanageable, bogus referrals and dumping and insurance problems. The PER remains the front-line of the medical and social service systems. Work done in these settings is of critical importance; however little attention is paid to the content and nature of the work. Our study demonstrates that staff of the PER face challenges on many levels as they struggle with the task of working with people presenting in psychiatric and social crisis.

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Preface Within the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Building Technologies Office Multi-Year Program Plan, the Commercial Buildings Integration Program's mission is to accelerate voluntary adoption of significant energy performance improvements in existing and new commercial buildings. At JDM Associates, we are honored to be working with DOE to promote energy efficiency among market leaders and drive energy efficiency efforts in the commercial real estate industry. In the years leading up to the execution of this pilot research project, we conducted extensive stakeholder engagement with academic and professional real estate researchers, leading commercial real estate firms, and industry organizations. With their help, we reviewed existing studies that investigate potential connections between energy efficiency and financial performance of assets, discussed challenges that have severely limited data acquisition and sharing, and assessed potential strategies and solutions for overcoming these barriers and catalyzing more robust research in this field.