IOM calls for action to address overburdened emergency care system

[CAL/AAEM News Service]

IOM calls for action to address overburdened emergency care system

Source: AHA News Now (http://www.ahanews.com)
Date: June 14, 2006


An Institute of Medicine committee today recommended action to address the
challenge of increased demand and inadequate capacity in the nation’s
emergency care system, calling the current system overburdened, under-funded
and highly fragmented. The three-part report calls on Congress to appropriate
$50 million for hospitals with significant uncompensated emergency and
trauma care,  and to appoint a commission to examine the declining
availability of doctors in high-risk emergency, trauma care and on-call
specialties. In addition, the report recommends that states regionalize the
delivery of emergency and trauma services to ensure that patients get to
the right hospital and that on-call specialists are available to treat them;
that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services convene a
working group to develop standards and incentives to end boarding of patients
in the emergency department and ambulance diversion; and that hospitals
streamline patient flow by adopting operations management techniques and
modern information technologies. Carmela Coyle, AHA senior vice president for
policy, said the report “highlights the many challenges facing hospital
emergency departments, which in turn are symptoms of the broader issues
facing the health care system. We need to find a way to provide health care
coverage for all Americans and better access to preventive and primary care."


For more information, including a report brief and fact sheet, please visit:
http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3809/16107/35007.aspx 


Cyrus Shahpar & Brian Potts 
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/


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