Organization of context in nursing - Essay Example

Running Head: Bed Capa and Service Quality at Mercy Holy Hospital. Modern hospitals in Canada and the world over are striving to improve internal process, increase efficiency and ultimately offer quality services. The Holy Mercy Hospital is not an exception. The hospital’s mission is “to be a world leader in innovative research and healthcare programs” and as such strives as much as possible to deliver standards of service quality. Today the hospital has 5 VPs 5 program directors and a manager for every nursing unit.

In this paper I will be looking internal strengths Holy Mercy Hospital and particularly bed capacity. Holy Mercy Hospital currently has a total of 500 beds; the ICU and CVICU units have been allocated 25 beds each. For a hospital classified under Acute Care Facilities, with programs in emergency medicine, critical care, cardiovascular medicine and surgery such a bed capacity is a significant internal strength. The hospital handles mostly patients requiring specialised attention and therefore having enough beds greatly improves the quality of service offered to clients.

Firstly, the comfort of patients is paramount in healthcare and with such a number of beds; the Holy Mercy Hospital is able to effectively deliver on comfort to patients as they await or receive care (Liew and Kennedy, 203). From the perspective of evidence-based practice, it has been established that boarding especially in acute care settings significantly worsens patient outcomes. Boarding involves holding patients for longer periods in emergency units due lack of space or low bed capacities in hospitals and this causes overcrowding.

Some negative impacts of boarding and ultimately crowding include delays in care delivery, diversion of ambulance services and increased periods of stay at the hospitals. Cases of medical negligence, financial loss and medical errors also increase with boarding in hospitals and these culminate higher patient mortality rates. One high impact solution to the challenges above in hospital settings is to reduce triage times and increase bed capacity. With increased bed capacity Mercy Hospital is able to achieve this and even register patients at the bedside.

This eliminates the need for long queues and waits in the process of registration. As a result of the bed capacity, the hospital is at times able to completely bypass triage and effectively streamline service delivery. Patients who show no critical signs for instance are send directly the area where they wait on beds for service. This improves quality as physicians take their time to listen to the patients and make precise diagnosis. This adds value as triage care is freed up for those patients requiring close evaluation and judgement in determining severity of the conditions (Chaflin, Trzeciak and Likourezos et al 2007).

Bed therefore serves to increase internal efficiency at the Mercy Holy hospital. I would recommend that for the hospital to derive more value from this, it should further streamline its process especially at registration. Admitted patients with no signs of danger should be sent directly to the waiting beds so that only those with serious emergencies are left to go through the triage process for determination of care requirements. The hospitals should also ensure to have enough staff to increase value for the patients.

There should also be measures to ensure TAT for patients are drastically reduced by taking advantage of the bed capacity. Admitted patients should also be assigned to specific nurses for personalised care so as to improve outcomes.Summary.The mission of Holy Mercy Hospital is to be a world leader in innovative research and healthcare programs.It has a bed capacity of 500, with ICU and CVICU units having 25 beds each. This is a major strength considering it is an acute care facility.The bed capacity eliminates boarding and overcrowding while increasing patient comfort.

With the bed capacity the hospital is able to achieve efficiency by allowing the triage areas to focus energy on the most critical patients requiring close attention and hence improve quality of service.References1. American College of Emergency Physicians. (2008). Emergency Department Crowding: High Impact Solutions. Available at: http://www.acep.org/workarea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=50026 2. Chalfin DB, Trzeciak S, Likourezos A, et al (2007). Impact of delayed transfer of critically ill patients from the emergency department to the intensive care unit.

Crit Care Med. 35 (6):1477-1483.3. Liew D, Liew D, Kennedy MP. (2003). Emergency department length of stay independently predicts excess inpatient length of stay. Med J Aust. 179 (10): 524-526.