Introduction
Medical traffic and the need to reach the hospital during an emergency are among the most evidently arising problems in today's scenario, especially in countries around the world. There is extreme pressure on the hospital team to handle the increasing number of cases and the need to admit them to emergency units. The lack of emergency services includes emergency vehicles like ambulances, hospital beds, emergency medications, etc., which was evident during the COVID outbreak. According to the data collected, the shortfalls are mostly due to patient, age, or chronic illness. Here, the main objective is to solve this inadequacy and provide easy access to the patients. Also, adequate knowledge of emergency management and medicine is very important, which helps professionals to handle emergency traffic.
What Are the Factors That Increase Emergency Traffic And Cause Emergency Inadequacy?
The factors that cause an increase in emergency traffic leading to inadequacy in health care are:
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Ignorance.
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Mishandling of healthcare benefits.
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Lack of adequate hospital beds and infrastructure.
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Limited staffing.
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Increased workload to the emergency staff.
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Delayed treatment due to multiple imaging and assessment techniques.
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Increase in the world population.
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Financial crisis.
How Can We Fix This Emergency Inadequacy?
The necessity to fix emergency inadequacy is of supreme importance in the current scenario. Here are a few ways to fix this crisis, and they are:
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To Expand Hospital Capacity: The wider the space, the more the occupancy; during World War II, there was a severe shortage of hospital beds, which led to poor access to health services. Hence, increasing the space and providing adequate treatment is crucial in handling an emergency crisis. Although the expansion of hospital space can be a debatable conversation, this helps to handle the offset created by the aging population with several chronic illnesses and the frequency of hospital visits needing occupancy. Also, knowing the infrastructure of the emergency rooms gives the public health sector and policymakers to provide better facilities according to the requirement.
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To Avoid Regulation of Hospitals And Allow Flexibility: A work culture of flexibility in the emergency units promotes more productive and efficient work. That is because the mood in the emergency department is always stressful and chaotic, and every patient needs nursing and medical care. In 2004, there was a regulation passed by California legislation; it stated a 4:1 ratio where one nurse monitors four patients. This led to a major drawback in patient handling as many patients were in the hallway waiting for medical care. So, it is necessary to understand the work scenario in an emergency room and the patient's needs and to set up flexible and comprehensive care so that everyone benefits and is manageable.
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Prioritizing Patients Needing Emergency Care and Providing Alternative Medical Care for the Non Insured Patients: It is essential to treat all the patients needing emergency care to get equal medical attention; in earlier days, people without medical insurance were sent back or stopped from getting treatment. In order to fix this, an act was passed in 1986 called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which stated that all the patients admitted to the emergency department, irrespective of their medical insurance, should be primarily screened and interpreted and should be treated equally well. However, many patients aware of this tend to misuse this scheme. It is believed that in true emergency cases, although this protocol led to an increased crowding in the emergency room, it led to the opening of new health centers like the Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) that aid in treating patients without insurance under emergency care.
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Avoidance of Boarding Previously Admitted Patients to Emergency Departments: Due to the unavailability of hospital beds, Patients who are sick but not in the emergency are admitted to the emergency department, and where there is an inflow of emergency cases, patients in the emergency are made to wait in the nearby rooms, storage rooms, or hallways. These patients are usually sicker than those admitted under normal conditions occupying the emergency room. So, patient handling and monitoring beds in the hospital and emergency department should be prioritized to prevent emergency room congestion. With an increasing number of cases and their severity, patients from the emergency department are shifted to the hallway. Those in emergency need of medical management are shifted to the emergency room beds and are addressed for their health needs.
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Limiting Use of Imaging Available: In olden times, usage of imaging techniques like scans and X-rays were used only when essential. Still, in today's scenario, almost 50 percent of all cases are sent for a CT scan or any preferred imaging modality. This limits the rate of diagnosing and providing treatment plans, resulting in emergency room congestion. The increased number or frequency of such imaging techniques can only result in harmful, damaging aftereffects; hence, care should be taken to limit the usage of imaging techniques in emergency rooms.
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Type Grouping Hospitals Based on Specialties: Grouping of hospitals according to their specialists also reduces emergency congestion. Typing the hospitals as intensive care unit centers, antibiotic infusion (IV) centers, etc., helps in group segregation of the patients so the admissions rates in each department based on the specialty can be segregated. This slows down the rate of admission in emergency rooms.
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Increasing the Number of Auxiliary Staff and Emergency Management by Nurse Attending: By increasing intake in the emergency wards, hospital attendees and staff greatly help in handling the emergency department. Also, providing emergency management by the nursing attendants helps with the congestion of patients in the emergency hallway. Handling patients through telemedicine sites also favors a reduced and manageable crowd.
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Education and Prevention of Injury or Disease: The only knowledge globally gained by the patient is to rush to the emergency department during a crisis. Rather, a regular periodic checkup would prevent these conditions in the long term. But in most cases, people are either unaware of the scenario or mostly ignorant. In order to prevent this, proper health education measures and routine health checkup camps are launched. The public is also educated on preventing motorcycle accidents and their management to reduce trauma intake.
Conclusion
There are multiple reasons for the inadequacy of emergency management or healthcare, but in today's scenario, especially during a pandemic, it was evident that the need to fix this was almost a priority. Hence, these are a few steps that can be taken along with the collective efforts of healthcare workers, business people, investors, politicians, media, and the public to understand the needs and be aware of the situations to bring out an easy and efficient outcome.
