Institute of Medicine to overwhelmed ED managers: 'You're not alone'.

Publication: ED Management

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COPYRIGHT 2006 A Thomson Healthcare Company

Institute of Medicine to overwhelmed ED managers: 'You're not alone'

Many problems caused by flaws in system, landmark reports say

"Emergency health care in crisis."

"High demand overcomes inadequate system capacity."

"Overcrowding, boarding, diversions are major challenges."

ED managers who read these headlines in the three Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports on emergency care probably will feel as though they could have written them themselves.

What is different about these reports is that it's not the ED managers pointing out the problems in the system, but a major organization that carries substantial clout. And the report's emphasis on regionalization and system processes clearly demonstrate that problems such as ED overcrowding are not ED problems, but system problems. In the case of overcrowding, for example, that means it's a hospital problem.

"First of all, the IOM calls this a national crisis," says Mike Williams, MPA, HAS, president of The Abaris Group, a Walnut Creek, CA-based health care consulting firm specializing in emergency services. "I think this report is a major reinforcement to ED providers that the system is broken, and that the IOM feels your pain. But they reinforced that with the message that hospitals, for example, have...

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