Hospitals do not always have enough space to hold patients.
Overcapacity protocols are a set of procedures that hospitals follow when their emergency rooms have too many patients and not enough space. These patients are moved from the emergency rooms to other parts of the hospital. Carrying out overcapacity protocols effectively requires that all aspects of the hospital be coordinated perfectly.
Health Risks
Unacceptable hospital space leads to shortages of hospital beds, overcrowding and an increased risk of communicable disease transmission as patients with contagious diseases are crowded closer to each other. Overcrowding increases the number of patients who pass away in the hospital setting. Overcrowding has also lead to many patients being cared for in inappropriate locations such as in hallways. When designing overcapacity protocols, the most important factor to consider is the health of the patients.
Overstaffing
Nurses are also overwhelmed by the number of patients in their care. Nurses are required to take patients even when they are overstaffed. Overworking nurses can cause mental fatigue, which can increase the chances of human error, regardless of how highly trained the nurses are.
Communication
Communication between emergency rooms and other wards of the hospital must be improved so that these wards can assist the emergency rooms in freeing up space for patient care. Other wards of the hospital must be quickly informed when the emergency room has become overcrowded and emergency rooms must know which wards of the hospital can take additional patients.
Nurse Input
Nurses must also have more of a say in how patient overcrowding is handled. These nurses often have frontline experience with the effects of patient overcrowding and are a valuable resource when attempting to develop methods of handling patient overcrowding. To get nurses to participate more in hospital decisions, nurses have to stop normalizing abnormal aspects of daily hospital care. They must be conscious of hospital issues that must be addressed.
Support Staff
Overcrowded hospitals need more support staff who are capable of assisting nurses so that nurses can focus on tasks that they are more specialized for. These support staff can be hired more easily because the training requirements for them are lower.
Converted Spaces
Spaces that are underutilized or rarely utilized must be converted so that they can hold more patients. These spaces must be assessed to determine if they are safe for patients and conducive to medical procedures and managed care.
Training
Nurses must be continually educated about new processes and policies related to overcrowding so that they can more effectively manage overcrowding. Efficient methods of delivering new information to nurses must be devised and is implanted often through carefully scheduled training programs.
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