Case Management

Unloading delays cause availability problems

Case Management Weekly, July 11, 2007

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The time it takes for emergency personnel to unload a patient at a hospital's emergency department can be critical to that patient's care. But in southern California, a new problem is emerging: emergency personnel are becoming so delayed trying to drop patients off that it is affecting the availability of paramedics (and critical equipment such as ambulances) to respond to other emergencies.

 

It's a vicious cycle, and one that emergency managers want to resolve, reported southern California-based The Press-Enterprise. In two southern California counties alone, personnel may waste more than 28,000 hours this year just waiting to unload patients onto hospital beds if the trend continues, according to The Press-Enterprise.

 

Source: Emergency Management Alert, HCPro, Inc.

 



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