Causes Of ED Overcrowding

Whether a person or their loved-one is suffering from a severe mental illness or a life-threatening ailment, a trip to the emergency room is what comes to mind immediately. Emergency department (ED) provides emergency care to our community twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days per year minus the waiting part. Wait time fluctuates throughout the day, from a few minutes to a few hours until a patient in the waiting area is seen in the triage. Regardless, the ED lives to the expectation of providing emergency care to any patient with acute or chronic sickness and injuries at any time of a given day. On peak times, the emergency department runs its operation above capacity— “a situation in which the demand for emergency services exceeds the ability of physicians and nurses to provide quality care within a reasonable time” (Sinclair, 2007). When there are more patients than treatment rooms available, ED overcrowding occurs. It does not necessarily mean that the
A few factors such as lack of rooms for admission, shortage of primary care physicians, staff shortage, etc. are external causes that lead to the congestion of EDs. Scarcity of inpatient beds for