What if I were to tell you that the waiting room of an emergency department (ED) might be the most hazardous place for your health and is considered by the CDC to be the most dangerous place in a hospital? There is a current ethical problem with delaying care for patients in the emergency department, putting patients at greater risk for harm and deterioration of outcome, which demands reform. Emergency department waiting times are a pernicious source of harm to patients that is far too common of a condition across a wide variety of hospital types throughout the United States. As an emergency department nurse, we practice beneficence which includes the removal of possible harm to patients; we are not acting altruistically when we allow these predictable occurrences of excessive wait times. Beneficence is our moral obligation as nurses to embrace the patient’s well-being, opposing this principle of only doing good for patients are hours of delays. Emergency Departments experience access-block and sub-optimal patient outcomes as a result of delays. Emergency departments are …show more content…
Due to the populations current issues with insufficient healthcare coverage, or complete lack of, many patients resort to the ED as primary access and diagnosis thus delaying treatment even further.As a result, emergency departments are providing treatment for medical, surgical, critical, and psychological emergencies. These extended wait times lead to a deterioration of patient health, discounting of the patients chief complaints with the intention of acting more efficiently, and inadvertently, occasionally, causing the spread of communicable diseases. Emergency rooms by definition are 24-hour care access to healthcare, however they are losing the fairness and impartiality to provide equal service to all patients stemming from outrageous wait
There are pros and cons. Some medical people believe that the EMTALA legislation creates some problems for hospitals. Knowing that hospitals must take care of every person, people may use the ED for routine doctor visit situations. These people believe this contributes to the sometime overcrowding of ED’s. Another problem is that EMTALA legislation mandates caring for everyone no matter what. The hospital therefore, may not get paid. “According to the American College of Emergency Physicians, 55 percent of emergency care goes
Because of the lack of organization with the health care providers in Canada, the wait times are too long and can cause serious complications to any condition the patient went in for in the first place. This situation of how the health care system can resolve wait times was brought to the government but they continue to ignore the proposals brought to them. It is possible to resolve the problems of wait times without extreme change and expenses in the health care system. The solution is to be found in the reorganization of the health care providers. Lack of assistance in the emergency room can make ones illness to become worse, therefore, causes the patient to be forced to wait in emergency rooms for an extended period of time and when they are finally seen by a health care provider, the outcome is very poor due to lack of registered staff, physicians and proper assessment(Goldman & Macpherson, 2005, p.40). The objective of this paper is to discuss and critically analyze the conditions of emergency waiting rooms. The specific issue this paper intends to explore is extensive and prolonged waiting times for patients accessing health care, patients who need urgent treatment and the vulnerability of elderly patients and children. With an in-depth critique of the barriers to health care and shortcomings of emergency rooms, strategies will be provided to enhance a health care system that makes it more accessible and efficient.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2012), the average time patients spend in the U.S. emergency department (ER) before they can see a doctor has increased to 25% between 2003-2009. The main cause of longer wait times (WT) in the ER is overcrowding. Overcrowding has been found to be closely related to both subjective and objective patient satisfaction (Miro’ et al, 2003). Longer wait times in the ED is such an important issue because its consequences are detrimental not only to the ER patients, but also to providers. As a health care provider, decreasing patients’ WT in the ED is essential, although challenging, to improve patient’s health outcomes and increase patients’ satisfaction. Although it is a very challenging issue to tackle, hospitals that have initiated some quality improvement (QI) strategies are experiencing some positive outcomes in that area of care. The outcomes are measured by decreased waiting times, improved patients’ clinical outcomes and increased patients’ satisfaction.
There are questions about transplant allocation in regards to the four major ethical principles in medical ethics: beneficence, autonomy, nonmaleficence and justice. Beneficence is the “obligation of healthcare providers to help people” that are in need, autonomy is the “right of patients to make choices” in regards to their healthcare, nonmaleficence, is the “duty of the healthcare providers to do no harm”, and justice is the “concept of treating everyone in a fair manner” ("Medical Ethics & the Rationing of Health Care: Introduction", n.d., p. 1).
Planning included reaching out to other health organizations, objectives, and goals of health fair were established. The implementation includes getting volunteers, set up for the health fair. The evaluation of the process occurred throughout the implementation and changes were made as needed. The evaluation will be completed by gathering information from health booth to determine the number of participants. Review vendor and participant evaluations about the health fair including how they heard about the health fair, ratings of booths and suggestions for improvements. Record everything to determine changes. Reflection on past experiences and what worked and did not work.
Today, there are so many legal dilemmas dominating trial for the courts to make a sound legal decision on whose right in a complicated situation. Despite the outcome of the case, the disagreement usually has a profound effect on the healthcare organization, and the industry as a whole. Many cases are arguments centered around if the issue is a legal or moral principle. Regardless what the situation maybe, the final decision is left to the courts to differentiate between the legality issues at hand opposed to justifying a case based on moral rules. According to Pozgar (2012), an ethical dilemma arises in situations where a choice must be made between unpleasant alternative. It can occur whenever a choice involves giving up something good and suffering something bad, no matter what course of action is taken (p. 367). In this paper, I will discuss cases that arose in the healthcare industry that have been tried and brought to justice by the United States court system.
Many current practices in ambulatory settings reflect care that is not centered on the patient but rather on how fast providers can see and discharge patients. Very little time is spent talking with the patient in ...
Nurses across the globe are saving multiple lives daily. They work hard to take care of various patients with an array of different health problems. They are accountable for not only caring for the patient’s health but also being empathetic and friendly with all visitors. Exactly how many patients is a nurse responsible for keeping safe, comfortable, and alive? It is difficult to say because the nurse to patient ratio policies varies immensely across state borders.
With patient safety always being the number one priority FTR is the worst case scenario for the hospitalized patient. In an article titled “Failure to Rescue: The Nurse’s Impact” from the Medsurg Nursing Journal author Garvey explains ways FTR can occur “including organizational failure, provider lack of knowledge and failure to realize clinical injury, lack of supervision, and failure to get advice.” Nurses are problem solvers by nature, they heal the sick and help save lives. FTR is a tragic experience for everyone involved. The recent surge in this happening across the country has given FTR cases widespread media coverage. Hospitals are trying to figure out what the root cause is and how they can be prevented. Fortunately, with the advancement of technology and extensive research many hospitals have developed action plans and procedures to help prevent the early warning signs from being
The act of doing good, also known as beneficence, is a major role of the nurse. No matter what a nurse does, he or she must demonstrate beneficence in everything he or she does. However, healthcare agencies are not perfect and there are some topics that the Joint Commission has decided could be improved on. They have formulated a list of goals focused primarily on improving nursing care. This list is called the National Patient Safety Goals. One of these goals focuses on reducing the harm associated with clinical alarm systems. This is an immensely important topic, as there have been reports of major injury and even death due to the misuse of alarm systems. However, by following the guidelines demonstrated by the Joint Commission a healthcare agency is able to greatly reduce the risk of alarm associated accidents. When managing alarms in a clinical setting, it is crucial to practice beneficence in
Emergency rooms are often crowded with low-risk patients, which result in long wait times, unsatisfied patients, misdiagnosis, and overworked emergency room physicians. As a result, at least two domains of quality of care, safety, and timeliness, are compromised by emergency room crowding (Bernstein et al., 2009). Additionally, one study found that periods of high emergency department crowding were associated with increased inpatient mortality and modest increases in length of stay and costs for admitted patients (Sun et al., 2013). Consequently, patients are not only paying a premium for their emergency room visits but may also be paying with their lives. Furthermore, the hospitals themselves are obligated to over utilize their staff and resources
Emergency care has always been an important part of history all over the world. It has been said that medical assistance has been around and prevalent since as far back as 1500 B.C. Around the 1700’s is when EMS systems first began to experience large advancements, and ever since then, the field continues to grow and improve every year.
One of the reasons the ACA was designed was to decrease emergency room stress associated with frequent visits (Armour, 2013). Therefore, there may be a decrease in the demand for personnel within the ER. As the ACA tries to make health care more accessible, fewer patients may visit the ER as they acquire primary physicians rather than going to the ER for treatment and medication. In addition, patient visits in areas of care at hospital treatment centers for the prevalent ailments prone to that population may decrease as patients better manage their treatment through covered health care and consistent adherence to doctor
Emergency is defined as a serious situation that arises suddenly and threatens the life or welfare of a person or group of people. An emergency department (ED) or also known as emergency room (ER) is a department of a hospital concentrating in emergency medicine and is accountable for the delivery of medical and surgical care to patients arriving at the hospital needing an immediate care. Usually patients will arrive without prior appointment, either on their own or by an ambulance.
The ethic of impartial lifesaving aid has been captured and codified in international law, most obviously in the Geneva Conventions, which seek to limit the extremes of warfare and its effect on those not directly engaged in fighting (Walker et al, 2012, p.116). The principle of impartiality stems from article 3.1 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949, which states that “persons taking no active part in hostilities shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria” and article 7.1-2 of the 1997 Protocol Additional to the Convention Relating to the Protection