Emergency Department Analysis

Emergency Department Analysis

The emergency departments of a nation are the most basic health care systems units. They provide a safety precaution and provide care for the patients with conditions requiring urgent and emergency conditions (Blair, 2013). These departments constantly in efforts to have a positive impact on the health of the patients. However, some of the emerging issues become problematic to the department affecting their capabilities to provide quality health care. Overcrowding in the emergency department has become a concern in many hospitals due to their problems in health care provision and management. The study looks into the changes affecting the emergency department with its challenges and possible solutions to the problem.

Effects of Overcrowding to ED`s Management

Emergency departments reflect the community by the number of patients it admits. For the health of the community to improve, everyone must get treated (Blair, 2013). However, crowding in the emergency rooms causes a problem to the service delivery. Its management becomes difficult since, apart from adding pressure to the already stressed emergency department, it causes significant complications to the health services and also to the staff. The ambulances bringing the sick get turned away due to a lack of more space to handle the extra patient. The resources of the department get stretched out thin, taking care of the patients become a problem and dangerous. Also, the effects of crowding in this department are that it becomes poorly equipped in coping with disasters (Blair, 2013). Consequently, the doctors and nurses have to work extra shifts causing fatigue, affecting the way the care and treatment they provide.

 Challenges of crowding in a Management point of view.

Crowding in the emergency department causes a problem in how things are carried out. Firstly they affect the schedule of the doctors since they have to attend to the extra number of patients higher than the average numbers they are used to handle. Also, thinned resources mean that the management faces financial constraints (Blair, 2013). They also have a challenge in providing reliable and long-lasting solutions to the problem through having more facilities and hiring more physicians and doctors, which means that the management has to use for money and neglect other departments.

Management function and decision making

The management in dealing and solving the problem of crowding in the emergency department is through an enterprise management approach. Through this approach, each healthcare team provides the best in their area of expertise, giving room to the overall management to improve the quality of the healthcare and patients outcome (Blair, 2013). Through the utilization of an innovative program, the healthcare providers deal with the most common issues that cause people to storm the emergency department reducing the crowding. These innovations get more insights from the research centers, which allow the management to approach the crowding issue on many fronts.

How is organizing used in the department?

The emergency department focuses on the prevention of injury and disease from becoming chronic. Therefore the policies taken enhance the services by hiring qualified personnel and equipping the department with the necessary tools. Research policies enable the management to cut costs caused by the thinning effect of resources from crowding. It also provides quality services by reducing overcrowding allowing the doctors to work in a conducive environment through the exchange program where doctors are not supposed to work for more extra hours than usual. Thus creating shifts that ensure that the physicians have rest and the services of the department do not come to a halt.

Suggestion

The problem of overcrowding seems not to end soon since more and more people become seek every day with others having recurring diseases. Therefore a more comprehensive solution must become implemented. Though the management puts efforts of constructing facilities and adding the bed numbers, it only leads to unattended patients. Consequently, a more lasting solution is the combination of extending facilities and hiring more physicians while also encouraging and supporting research for the prevention of most treatable cases that end up in the emergency department.