The best way health systems can serve their surrounding communities is to provide consistent and timely access to care, for every patient who needs it.
This not only improves patient outcomes, but drives higher revenue and keeps costs low.
In the wake of the pandemic, hospitals in all settings have seen an influx of patients needing care access. This rush of higher patient demand, combined with capacity bottlenecks and unforeseen barriers, has made offering access a constant challenge. The New England Journal of Medicine stated in an April 2023 commentary “that the greatest risk to hospital safety and health care equity is the unprecedented capacity crisis faced in acute hospital care” and describes how hospitals and emergency departments nationwide are missing diagnoses or treatments due to overcrowding.
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