According to a recently published EmCare whitepaper, poor patient flow in hospitals slows throughput and decreases overall capacity. Those hospitals tend to demonstrate the following four issues:
1. Physicians and staff work in silos instead of all focusing on the larger picture of providing patient-centered care.
2. The differing perspectives of hospitalists and emergency medicine physicians cause communication breakdowns and inefficient handoffs.
3. Inpatients occupy beds even though they are ready for discharge, thus blocking admissions from the ED.
4. Average ED boarding time exceeded three and a half hours.
According to EmCare, integrating emergency medicine and hospital medicine can help hospitals improve on all four of those issues and thus improve patient flow and capacity.
More Articles on Patient Flow:
Top 3 Problems That ED Boarding Causes & How Technology Can Help
Patient Flow Checklist for Nurses
What's the Holdup? Overcoming the Costly Delays in Admissions and Throughput