Hospital Wait Time Essay

Introduction

Hospital wait times have long been an issue amongst patients in emergency rooms as it’s unrealistic for every patient to receive assistance as soon as they arrive in the emergency department. Those with life-threatening injuries have priority while those without are still suffering and have no alternative but to wait for medical attention. In an age where technology has solved numerous everyday problems and businesses are continually evolving with new innovations, is it possible for hospitals to implement similar concepts to create an efficient organizational structure and increase employee productivity? This short paper explores alternative solutions to reducing wait times by reassigning hospital duties, implementing a new pay

Organization and Efficiency

Hospitals are massive industries that have hundreds of operations occur in short periods of time. With all of these operations occurring simultaneously, there has to be an effective organizational system to handle all of these processes. When the organizational system fails to keep processes from operating there are repercussions that occur that affect hospital staff, their current patients, and all new incoming patients. We can see these repercussions today from the extremely long wait times in hospitals. The severity of these wait times has adverse effects on the morality of the hospital staff as well as those who seek care. Currently, wait times for both complex and minor conditions appear unbearably long. Looking at the Ontario Ministry of health and long-term care it is evident that there are incredibly long wait times. The provincial targets are at a total time of 8 hours for complex conditions and 4 hours for minor conditions. One can search the site for wait times in the past month (ED Wait Times). There are hospitals that fall below the provincial target

These non-nursing jobs consist of but are not limited to changing linens, transporting patients, and taking out the garbage (Robeznieks 2015). The amount of time used for non-nursing tasks could be allocated to assisting in the duties that a nurse is obligated to fulfill. With nurses performing the correct duties, there will be increased efficiency throughout the emergency and triage departments and the non-nursing duties can be delegated to the medical assistants who can easily handle the tasks. The overall increase in efficiency is undeniable as trained medical staff does not need to be transporting patients themselves from department to department. Medical assistants can easily pick up the excess non-nursing tasks to create a more efficient environment. Looking at all the staff there has to be implementation or an evaluation or the current process that is untaken in emergency