Causes, effects, and solutions to emergency room overcrowding

Emergency Room Overcrowding

Healthcare reform must take emergency room overcrowding into account.

Emergency room overcrowding is characterized by a dual phenomenon:

There are actual increases in the number of patients seeking treatment.

There is also a reduction in staff and hospital resources.

Actual definitions of emergency room overcrowding include long wait times, lack of available beds, and boarding patients.

Boarding patients is both the cause and effect of emergency room overcrowding, and hospital administrators and policy makers alike must work together for solutions.

The causes of emergency room overcrowding are multifaceted.

Staff shortages are a major problem for hospitals.

Emergency physicians contend with skyrocketing liability insurance.

Nursing shortages are also creating emergency room overcrowding.

B. Budget cuts have resulted in fewer emergency rooms being built and cost-cutting in existing ones.

C. Emergency room admissions procedures are woefully inefficient.

D. Hospitals lack effective protocol for dealing with maximum capacity emergency rooms.

E. There is a lack of legislative response so far.

F. The uninsured are increasingly using the ED for their non-emergency needs.

III. The effects of emergency room overcrowding can be deadly.

A. Boarding patients, or keeping already treated or stabilized patients in the ED, prevents patients from receiving the inpatient care they need.

B. Long wait times and inefficient service can mean loss of life

IV. Possible solutions demand health care system overhaul.