Rethinking ER Design
In an ever-changing world with daily advancements in technology and design, don’t let your ER get bogged down by outdated patient flows. Emergency rooms handle nearly 50% of all care that takes place in a hospital. With more and more patients using emergency departments for their primary care, ensuring that they are met with quality care in a timely manner that is appropriate to their needs is of the utmost importance.
Patient Flow & Treatment
Patient flow starts at the reception desk, where patients are checked in and have their needs assessed. Non-acute patients are then sent to the waiting area. Creating a welcoming, calming waiting area can relieve some of the stress of being in the ER and waiting for treatment. Providing recliners and keeping patients vertical in observation areas means fewer specialty-focused staff members are required for non-acute care. This improves patient flow by being able to provide high-need patients with the care that they need in a timely manner and not overworking or overspreading the specialty-focused staff.
Creating treatment pods around a central nurse station allows for eyes to be on patients at all times. By making some of these pods larger, more low acuity patients may be treated simultaneously. Adding dividers will allow for some amount of patient privacy. Nurse servers are helpful tools in the ER, stocking each one, in the same manner, will reduce time spent away from patients while looking for materials. The continuity of nurse server storage across the ER will further reduce the overall time a patient spends in the ER.
Treatment pods offer high levels of agility and modularity. If there is a sudden influx of patients, pods set aside for individual patients can be easily converted to serve multiple patients. Nurse server carts can be mobilized for these high-volume times, creating even more treatment and observation space in the ER outside of the treatment pod structure.
Ultimately, an efficient ER reduces nurse burnout and patient treatment times. An ER with a smooth patient flow that is agile to changing volumes of patients is prepared for the best and worst of times. To see more on how a Nurse Server can improve care in the ER read our blog on it! Working on a healthcare project? We’d love to hear about it – Contact us!
