Adding New Hospital Beds Speeds Ambulance Times

It will also raise new revenue for the hospital, study finds

WEDNESDAY, July 12, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- By increasing their ICU bed capacity, hospitals can reduce patient risk brought on by ambulance diversions, while increasing hospital revenues, a new U.S. study finds.

Ambulance diversion occurs when ambulance crews call ahead to a hospital, announcing that they have a patient on the way -- only to be told by the hospital that all beds are full. The ambulance crew must then find, and drive to, another hospital that has a free bed.

In a study published in the July 12 online issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine, researchers at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland conducted a two-year study of an urban, 400-bed, acute care teaching hospital with a level one trauma center treating about 43,000 emergency patients each year.

The study concluded that every hour of ambulance diversion costs the hospital about $1,100 in revenues.

The authors found that emergency room visits by patients who arrived by ambulance yielded average net revenues and charges that were three times higher than patients who arrived at the emergency department by other means.

When the hospital increased the number of intensive care unit beds and reduced ambulance diversion, it gained about $175,000 per month in additional revenues generated by ambulance patients, the study said. There was a 10 percent increase in emergency department revenues and a four percent increase in total monthly hospital revenues.

"It's important that hospitals understand that decreasing ambulance diversion can translate into higher revenues," study author K. John McConnell, of the university's Center for Policy & Research in Emergency Medicine, said in a prepared statement.

"The findings offer further evidence that emergency departments can be important revenue generators for hospitals. While the patient benefits and financial gains provide incentives for hospitals to reduce ambulance diversion, these incentives may be only a partial solution. True relief will probably require support from other areas, such as external financial payments and better regulatory policies concerning emergency departments," McConnell said.

More information

The American College of Emergency Physicians has more about emergency medical services.

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