Memorial Hospital Emergency Department - Essay Example

"Memorial Hospital Emergency Department" is an outstanding example of a paper on the health system.
One of the biggest problems in capacity management facing the Emergency Department is overcrowding of the facilities. The wait times by the patients have been largely prolonged by more than 10 percent within a period of seven years. Owing to this challenge facing ED there has been a remarkable increase in the phenomenon of ambulance diversion. This means that the ambulance has to be sent to other distant hospital facilities with less congestion. Recent survey healthcare data document that approximately 54 percent of hospitals in the urban sector report extensive congestion on the patient flow that the facility cannot sufficiently accommodate and offer quality, timely service to all (De Vericourt & Jennings, 2011). The Memorial Hospital has an emergency department designed to handle a maximum of 40 patients with acute illness but the facility is operating at double the expected capacity with more than 80 patients under active medication and clinical care. Over thirty patients lie on wheeled stretchers in hallways.

The healthcare practitioners have been forced to go out of their way and work at full tilt for most of the shift in order to address the ever-increasing numbers of patients. This has on the other hand led to increased medical errors and health risks following fatigue, stress, and reduced concentration from the overworked health professionals. This congestion has arisen from the few numbers of healthcare facilities institutionalized in a region. Very few health facilities have been well furnished and have the capacity to handle emergency and severe health cases. This makes the center's will capacity to handle severe cases too overcrowded.

The other problem is resource bottlenecks arising from ineffective performance management. This has led to low efficiency in healthcare as they cut down on the number of patients they can admit at any given time. Resources are also strained and some overused appreciating in value remarkably. This is fundamental as a result of the high turnover rate of patients and requiring medical services. This has compelled the management to effect resource bottlenecks on health facilities (De Vericourt & Jennings, 2011).

Managers at Memorial Hospital’s ED might have conducted cost analysis for facility expansion and hiring of more medical personnel too much patient-doctor ratio. This helps in averting the problems of congestion and medical errors arising from few practitioners attending to an exceedingly large number of patients. The implications of this forecast mean that the staff will relaxed schedule that enables them to increase their efficiency and productivity. Managers will also have to handle reduced cases of patient neglect, in some cases leading to their eventual demise due to untimely service delivery. The forecast and capacity planning is hence aimed at improving service delivery at the hospital (Green, 2004).