Organization of context in nursing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Organization of context in nursing - Essay Example Holy Mercy Hospital currently has a total of 500 beds; the ICU and CVICU units have been allocated 25 beds each. For a hospital classified under Acute Care Facilities, with programs in emergency medicine, critical care, cardiovascular medicine and surgery such a bed capacity is a significant internal strength. The hospital handles mostly patients requiring specialised attention and therefore having enough beds greatly improves the quality of service offered to clients. Firstly, the comfort of patients is paramount in healthcare and with such a number of beds; the Holy Mercy Hospital is able to effectively deliver on comfort to patients as they await or receive care (Liew and Kennedy, 203). From the perspective of evidence-based practice, it has been established that boarding especially in acute care settings significantly worsens patient outcomes. Boarding involves holding patients for longer periods in emergency units due lack of space or low bed capacities in hospitals and this causes overcrowding. Some negative impacts of boarding and ultimately crowding include delays in care delivery, diversion of ambulance services and increased periods of stay at the hospitals. Cases of medical negligence, financial loss and medical errors also increase with boarding in hospitals and these culminate higher patient mortality rates. One high impact solution to the challenges above in hospital settings is to reduce triage times and increase bed capacity. With increased bed capacity Mercy Hospital is able to achieve this and even register patients at the bedside. This eliminates the need for long queues and waits in the process of registration. As a result of the bed capacity, the hospital is at times able to completely bypass triage and effectively streamline service delivery. Patients who show no critical signs for instance are send directly the area where they wait on beds for service. This improves quality as physicians take their time to listen to the patients and