AMU Emergency Management Health & Fitness Opinion Public Safety

New Paradigms in Managing Emergency Patients

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New paradigms

Effectively managing an emergency department and all of the emergency cases that come through the door on a regular basis is an important area of concern. Patients need to keep moving through an emergency department in a way that allows the hospital to function smoothly. [link url=”http://www.jdnews.com/news/20160311/service-allows-emergency-department-patients-to-wait-from-home” title=”The Daily News”] recently highlighted that a new service in North Carolina would allow for emergency department patients to be able to see a doctor at their own homes.

The new service would ultimately allow people to wait in the comfort of their own home. In doing so, the emergency department would be effectively triaging patients, allowing for the department to have flexibility should a major disaster hit.

This new paradigm of diverting non-emergency patients away from the chaos of the emergency department is not a new concept. The [link url=”http://mihpresources.com/” title=”Mobile Integrated Healthcare Program”] is a healthcare delivery platform where healthcare providers come to the patient’s home, rather than the patient heading to the emergency department for care.

This program is changing the way emergency medical services (EMS) handles non-emergency patients and the concept is having an impact on emergency system paradigms throughout the country.

Triage

Often, non-emergency patients head to the hospital emergency department because they can’t get an appointment with their general practice physician, or they simply don’t have one. Emergency departments throughout the country fill to the brim with non-emergency calls, making it difficult for them to effectively manage patient care should a mass casualty strike.

It is ultimately of dire importance for an emergency department to figure out ways to effectively manage the people in its emergency departments who are not critical patients.

The concept will spread

The new ideas emerging out of the emergency department in North Carolina are likely to spread around the country in the same way that the Mobile Healthcare Program is spreading across the country in EMS agencies. While this new, intriguing idea will likely spread throughout the country as technology continues to be developed, it is in line with some of the forward thinking that has been taking place in the emergency medicine community. The concept of the mobile healthcare unit is quickly spreading across the country as it becomes a new way of handling non-emergencies to prevent ambulances from being used for non-emergency calls.

These new concepts will all help manage patients in the emergency department before it becomes a serious matter of concern.

Allison G.S. Knox

Allison G. S. Knox teaches in the fire science and emergency management departments at the University. Focusing on emergency management and emergency medical services policy, she often writes and advocates about these issues. Allison works as an Intermittent Emergency Management Specialist in the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. She also serves as the At-Large Director of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, Chancellor of the Southeast Region on the Board of Trustees with Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society in Social Sciences, chair of Pi Gamma Mu’s Leadership Development Program and Assistant Editor for the International Journal of Paramedicine. Prior to teaching, Allison worked for a member of Congress in Washington, D.C. and in a Level One trauma center emergency department. She is an emergency medical technician and holds five master’s degrees.

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