ED Overcrowding Solutions Solving The Overcrowding Challenge

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Print Welcome to ED Overcrowding Solutions! The ED Overcrowding Solutions website has dozens of tools, templates, and reports to help hospital professionals manage ED overcrowding. Overcrowding has significant repercussions on everything from patient survival to physician morale. When it comes to managing ED overcrowding, the stakes are getting higher every day. With CMS's proposals both for rewarding hospitals for efficiently moving patients through the ED and for penalizing facilities that fail to offer timely ED performance, you're under increasing pressure to manage this challenge -- and you need instant access to tools, metrics, and data on overcrowding. Now you can get it, with the ED Overcrowding Solutions website. At EB Medicine, our founders have over 30 years of experience working with physicians and hospital professionals. We are committed to providing the most relevant, up-to-date protocols and advice -- and our customer service team is dedicated to giving the absolute best in customer support. We believe that, with your support, we can tackle the challenges of emergency department overcrowding and build a safer and more efficient hospital environment for patients, physicians, and administrative personnel alike. Recent articles   Texting System Informs Patients Of Wait Times (in: Blog) Aug 31, 2011 While many emergency departments (EDs) have taken to posting their wait times on billboards, Kansas City’s Shawnee Mission Medical Center has chosen a different approach: Since March, it has been using a system called ER Texting. Patients can employ the code 4ER411 to text a message that includes their ZIP code. They then get a reply informing them of wait times at the closest of the system’s 2 EDs. Continue reading...   ED Overcrowding Solutions: Volume 1, Number 6 (September 2011) (in: Issues) Aug 30, 2011 Articles in this issue of ED Overcrowding Solutions include: Emergency Department Organizations Seek To Topple Overcrowding’s “Tower Of Babel;” Group Unveils Standard Definitions For Performance Metrics This article discusses using standardized metrics from 9 leading organizations for ED providers to create benchmarks to reduce overcrowding... Telepsychiatry Program Reduces Average Length Of Stay For 25 Emergency Departments; Program Helps Facilities That Lack Onsite Consulting Services This article reviews a statewide telepsychiatry program in South Carolina that significantly reduced ED stays and hospital admissions for more than 6000 mental health patients while also saving the participating facilities money... ‘Unit-Based Councils’ Help Emergency Department Earn Recognition From National Organization; Left-Without-Treatment Rate Less Than 1%; Treat-And-Release Time Is About 2.5 Hours This aritlce discusses a hospital-wide system of “Unit-Based Councils,” including one in the ED, that helped the Paoli Hospital ED become one of 20 EDs to earn the Emergency Nurses Association’s first-ever Lantern Award, while also helping them reduce LWOT rates and treat-and-release times... Expert Consult: A Methodological Approach To Emergency Department Operations Redesign In this article, Emilio S. Belaval, MD, FAAEM and Rolando Perea, MSN, RNP discuss their methodological approach to addressing ED overcrowding, including key definitions and creating a framework for redesign... Not a subscriber? Purchase this issue or subscribe today.   ‘Flow Facilitator’ A Part Of ED Turnaround (in: Blog) Aug 29, 2011 The emergency department (ED) at Heartland Regional Medical Center in the Kansas City area has achieved significant improvement in patient flow since October 2010. Door-to-doc time has dropped from over an hour to an average of 50 minutes, and last month’s average time from arrival to triage was 2.1 minutes, as opposed to 20 minutes in the past. A number of factors have played into the improvement, including one of the more creative strategies: the establishment of a new "Flow Facilitator" position. Continue reading...   Use EDs Wisely, System Tells Public (in: Blog) Aug 24, 2011 In an effort to reduce its emergency department (ED) overcrowding situation, Saskatchewan-based Cypress Health Region has posted a news release on its website to remind the public that “Proper use of emergency departments helps to reduce backlog and ensures that patients with true medical emergencies receive fast, prompt attention.” Continue reading...   After-Hours Clinic Reduces Use Of EDs (in: Blog) Aug 22, 2011 A new study shows that after-hours medical clinics can help reduce the demand on overcrowded hospital emergency departments (EDs). The study looked at Leduc, Alberta, a Canadian town of 20,000 near Edmonton with a single hospital. Doctors at the Leduc Hospital had noted they were increasingly seeing patients in their ED who could have been better served in a doctor's office. Continue reading...   Health System Opens Freestanding ED Aug 17, 2011 Vista Health System has opened a Freestanding Emergency Center (FEC) in Lindenhurst, IL. The FEC features: seven treatment rooms and a trauma room; 24/7 availability; board-certified emergency physicians; FAA-approved helipad for emergency transport; and full access to Vista Surgery Center services – including open MRI, Brilliance Big Bore CT Scanner, cardiac/vascular ultrasound, and diagnostic laboratory. Continue reading...   Expansion Aimed At Reducing Wait Times (in: Blog) Aug 15, 2011 Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, in Fayetteville, NC, has expanded its adult emergency department (ED) into space that was previously occupied by the children’s ED. According to hospital officials, the move enables the adult ED to expand and improve flow, thereby decreasing wait times. Continue reading...   Hilton Head EDs Taking Online Reservations (in: Blog) Aug 10, 2011 The emergency departments (EDs) at Hilton Head Hospital and Coastal Carolina Hospital are now providing patients online sites to “save their place” in line instead of sitting in the waiting room. For a fee of $9.99 and the completion of an online form, patients using the service can reserve a time to be seen. If they are not seen by a health professional in the ED within 15 minutes of that time, according to the hospitals, they will either be given a refund or an alternative time. Continue reading...   ED Leader Developing Palliative Care Program (in: Blog) Aug 8, 2011 Under the sponsorship of the Center to Advance Palliative Care, Tammie E. Quest, MD, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, who is also board-certified in hospice and palliative medicine, is heading up the development of a program that will provide hospitals with online tools and guidelines, identify best practices, and link doctors and others with experts to help integrate palliative care into their emergency departments (EDs). Continue reading...   Which Chest Pain Patients Can Be Sent Home? (in: Blog) Aug 3, 2011 A new study presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine by Erik P. Hess, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, has established a clinical prediction rule, called the “North American Chest Pain Rule,” for discharging low-risk chest pain patients from emergency departments (EDs) without detailed diagnostic evaluation. The study enrolled a total of 2718 patients from EDs in the US and Canada. Continue reading...   more articles >>