Overcrowding in hospitals is a global challenge, straining resources and compromising patient care. It can also pose a serious threat to the health and safety of medical staff, who struggle to manage patients in crowded environments. However, innovative solutions are emerging to address the issue.
Hospital overcrowding leads to long wait times, aggravates patient dissatisfaction and compromises the quality of healthcare provided1. In many cases, this problem arises from a lack of acute care beds, but there are other causes as well2,3,4,5,6,7. These include a high number of uninsured and low-acuity visits, surgical scheduling, safety net problems and seasonal outbreaks. Moreover, a shortage of hospital nurses makes it difficult to adequately cover shifts.
Overcrowded EDs are often unable to admit all eligible patients due to limited space and bed availability, leading to the creation of “boarder” rooms, where non-emergent patients are cared for while waiting for an available hospital bed. This practice not only leads to longer ED LOS but also erodes the perception of patients about their perceived waiting time and quality of care (Singer et al., 2015).
It is important to identify and implement effective management tools that can increase capacity. These might include smoothing elective admissions and boosting weekend discharges, which reduce the need for ED-admissions and thus free up ED bed space for other high priority patients. Moreover, it is essential to develop a plan to redistribute the workload during periods of overcrowding. This might be achieved by shifting more staff to the ED or even increasing the staffing level in the ED during periods of overcrowding.