Uk's Health Case Study

Hospital emergency room wait times are the talk of the United States right now. Long wait times can contribute to the problems that decrease the quality of our health care system. Emergency room wait times depend on how busy the day is going, how long it takes for each patient to be seen, and how much staff is on duty. Wait times are also based on your injury as well. If you are there for a broken toe versus a head injury, you are going to be seen after the patient with the head injury despite the fact that you were there first. A case study researched and and written by Kevin Tuttle explains a challenge with a mission to decrease the wait times in the emergency room department.

The implications and effects on patients waiting long hours to be seen in the ED are immense. In a recent study done over five years in Ontario hospitals showed the risk of adverse events and even deaths increased with the length of stay in the ED (Science Daily, 2011). When EDs become overcrowded the quality of care changes and declines; which is extremely dangerous. Authors of the study calculated that if ED length of stay was cut by only an hour that 150 fewer Ontarians would die each year (Science Daily, 2011). Wait times can also negatively affect patients financially, untreated medical conditions can lead to reduced productivity and inability to work leading to increased financial strains (Fraser Institute, 2014). As well as delayed access to care can result in more complex interventions needed. Therefore an initiative is needed to provide patients with timely, efficient care when accessing

There are many factors to why appointments are delayed or re-scheduled that are beyond the structuring of time, however, there are some ideas that can help ease the annoyance of having to wait. The best thing to address is making sure the patient feels comfortable. Keep people abreast of the wait time and what’s going on. People understand things happen. However, they don’t want to feel forgotten. Some doctor’s offices have grasped the ideas of distraction, provide TV with news and valuable information, brochures and literature read, even hiring nurses or

A major scandal arose out of Phoenix, Arizona in 2014 that led to many investigations finding that as many as forty patients died while waiting for care at a local VA hospital. (O’Donnel) And since then, there have not been many signs of improvement, In Arizona as well as the rest of the United States United States, on the wait time scandal. Despite billions of dollars and many calls of reform, investigations still show that that some VA facilities still struggle with bettering the wait times for their patients, leading to more death and late diagnoses. Reports conclude that there are over 500,000 cases of extended wait times, including delays longer than 30 days and being put on a waiting list just for an available appointment.

The medical office waiting room: What is a reasonable period of time to keep a patient waiting?

But Campbell (2012) argues that the modernisation of the NHS could have a diverse effect and provide worse care especially for the more serious conditions such as cancer as inequalities will be greater and poorer patients in lower socio-economic areas will be overlooked. The state of the public finances and tightening of budgets means that the past system was becoming increasingly unaffordable the new system will be responsive to the needs of patients and remove the layers of bureaucracy which consumed money that could be better spent on services. The British Medical Association (2010) stresses that it is not just finance that drives medical decisions as consideration must be given to the clinical need of the local heath community.

It is easy to understand the rushed appointments. Physicians regularly see close to 20 patients per day. Furthermore, the medical model focuses primarily on diagnosing and treating the illness at hand, at the expense of seeing the whole clinical picture. This often leads to frustration and decreased motivation to seek follow-up care.

Once you arrive at the emergency room, you experience more waiting depending on your current condition. Some of these waits depend on: length of stay, time waiting for assessment, condition, waiting for inpatient bed, and lack of resources. Finally, when you’re ready to leave the emergency department waits can occur, like waiting for an inpatient bed or a ride home (CIHI, 2012). All of these reasons impact the growing wait times, with older adults becoming more frequent in emergency departments and the increasing population of older adults these wait times are going to continue to grow causing more harm than good, if older adults are unable to receive the appropriate care in a timely matter (Cooke, Oliver, & Burns, 2012).

When overcrowding occurs, patients are placed in the hallway waiting for room to be transferred to. Any time overcrowding occurs most ambulances divert away from the closest hospital to the patients and in this situation hospitals lose a lot of revenue. Data published in the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2004 report national hospital ambulatory medical care survey on ED summary depicted that ED in United State are approaching a boiling point in terms of increasing patient demand and shrinking bed capacity, Levin et al (Fall,2006). According to the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, a recent survey conducted by the American College of Emergency physician of about 200 hospital administrators, majority pointed at overcrowding as their major constraint and about 60% said overcrowding in their facility forces the diversion of patients with urgent need

Emergency departments are considered an important aspect of the health care system. For many years, wait times have been an area of concern for many Canadians and remain a significant issue. One of the major concerns within the Canadian health care system is the amount of time spent as waiting time in the healthcare services. Wait times are the length of time from when the patient is triaged and registered, to when the patient leaves from the emergency room (Affleck, Parks, Drummond, Rowe, & Ovens, 2013). Whether waiting for a doctor, waiting for prescription medication, or even waiting to get tested, the reasons for wait time in Canada are caused by many factors (Cole, Hopman, & Kawakami, 2011). This paper will seek to examine the factors contributing to longer wait times in the emergency department, examine the ways in which wait times impact society, and conclude by presenting possible solutions to reduce wait times.

Another issue that loyalty wraps itself around is the wait time in doctors’ offices, including the time between a call-in and appointment and the time spent in the waiting room. Studies show that America generally has some of the longest waiting times among other countries. Studies show that 26 percent of Americans wait six days or more for an appointment after calling, which is better than only Norway and Canada (Rosenthol). Because people find spending relatively long periods of time in waiting rooms unsatisfactory, they seek to find the healthcare provider that has little to no waiting room. If the efficiency of the medical staff proves to be poor, then the waiting time a patient experiences could be incredibly long. This could cause dissatisfaction towards the specific practice, harming a reputation and resulting in fewer patients in the future.

And finally, by increasing funding for doctors, the waiting time in emergency rooms would decrease significantly by enabling the hospital to staff more doctors during the busy hours of the day. It would allow the hospital to staff additional doctors at night as well. These steps have been taken in some hospitals with great success. Hospitals have begun to communicate the expected wait times to their patients, one hospital even goes so far as to post waiting room times on the internet in real time, as of July 20 2007 at 19:31 the wait in the 5 hospitals listed ranged between 0 – 2 hr 40 minutes with the average being about

Very informative post Bonnie! No doubt, there is a shortage of primary care providers all over the United States and lack of insurance on top of that can make the conditions worse. In year 2006, the state of Massachusetts expand the insurance coverage of its population, but the healthcare workforce in unable to meet this high demand, which results in long waiting lists to see patients. The average time of getting on appointment with internist was 17 days in year 2005, which is increased to 31 days in year 2008, which increases both provider and patient frustration. This result in higher death and disease rates, higher disparity in health and higher emergency room visits. Many issues can be handled over the phone or via email, by a nurse or

Doctors said hospitals were now dangerously overcrowded, with three quarters of hospitals reporting bed shortages.

As can be seen in Table 1 below, the resources causing the long wait times are those that are over utilized, or those that show capacity utilizations greater than 100 percent. The only over utilized resource are the Physicians, who are being over utilized by 21 percent. The other major resources are still underutilized.