ED: Patient and Staff Satisfaction

[fh15307]

Hi,

I am not a nurse but have been a volunteer in the ED of two major hospitals for seven years, one a level 1 trauma center. Because of this, and because of a marketing background, I have been named by a large metro hospital to be a member of a new ED advisory council. With every type of accute and chronically ill patient possible, with ever-increasing numbers of visits, with most patients never having heard of triage let alone the concept, with high patient and visitor stress levels, with staff shortages and long work days, with seemingly always a shortage of beds, particularly tele beds, creating the best possible environment for patients and staff is a real task, to say the least. A lot of ideas for reducing stress, speeding up the time spent in the ED, etc., have been tossed around. We'll be evaluating those and I'll list them from time-to-time. Meanwhile, I'm also very much open to ideas from ED staff in hosptials large and small.

Thank you.

[pannie]

Thank you for volunteering your valuable to time to work on a valuable project! I'll look forward to your updates.