Health care management review
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Continued debate over who should pay for the increasingly unaffordable U. S. health care system has failed to yield a consensus solution. Shifting attention to how to reduce health care costs may be more productive. Strategies for achieving this goal include drastically reducing costly quality deficiencies, eliminating higher cost care options that add no demonstrated value, recognizing that responsibility for clinical and cost consequences cannot be divided, and acknowledging that rationing available resources is superior to other allocation alternatives.
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Health Care Manage Rev · Jan 1986
Satisfaction with hospital emergency department as a function of patient triage.
For most people, waiting is inherently dissatisfying and emergency department patients are no exception. Most patients and people accompanying the patient find the treatment waiting time in emergency medical care facilities to be a source of great dissatisfaction. The dissatisfaction is compounded in many cases by the anxiety of all associated with the patient and the discomfort or pain the patient feels. ⋯ With the trend toward new forms of health care delivery systems such as "emergicenters" and the increase in the number of physicians per capita, the emergency department will no longer be the most attractive or the only alternative available to the patients who have a nonemergency medical need. For emergency departments to remain profitable, it will be more important than ever before to meet the needs and expectations of their current and potential users. This can be accomplished by a program designed to reduce cost and waiting time and improve communication, and by other programs to educate the user so that the user's expectations more closely conform with what is actually needed or can be economically provided.
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The complexities of today's nursing unit, and especially the ICU, require greater interunit cooperation than ever before. As the complexity of the ICU structure increases, so does the potential for interunit conflict and organizational strain.
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Unlike other industries, hospitals are entitled by law to at least ten days' notice of any strike, picketing or concerted refusal to work. By asserting this right, they may plan for continued operation and the continued care of their patients.
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Integrated systems are developing and growing in the U. S. health care industry. This phenomenon has many implications for health care institutions, communities and health care consumers across the country.