Novant Health UVA Health System Culpeper Medical Center is like any other organization where they have their strengths and weaknesses. While their strengths are important it is vital to analyze their weaknesses in order to better position the organization toward their goals. Through two years of employment, there have been numerous changes occurring within the organization which has led the Emergency Department into some difficult situations. This all began when the Emergency Department received a generous budget to remodel and restructure itself. The capabilities of the department have grown dramatically over the last few years. Unfortunately, this advantage has not been maximized because management has done a poor job of creating and implementing…show more content… From this point, the patient waits in the waiting room until the charge nurse assigns the patient to a room. This process is referred to as a “pull until full” concept which immediately gets a patient into a room once they have signed into the department. This becomes an issue when all of the rooms are full and patients are waiting in the lobby. The technician performing visual assessments are determining the priority of patients by what they visualize and are told by the patient. This method is a tremendous liability to the organization as well as a potential compromise to patient safety. For example, a patient could present to the Emergency Department with atypical symptoms for a serious emergency requiring that they wait in the waiting room for over an hour. Then suddenly the patient becomes unresponsive in the waiting room and passes away as the staff tries to save their life. This example is why “triage systems are the gold standard in emergency departments worldwide” (Christ, Grossmann, Winter, Bingisser, & Platz, 2010). An established triage system utilizes a trained nurse to assess a patient by asking specific questions determining the severity of their condition in conjunction with their vital signs (Christ, Grossmann, Winter,…show more content… In healthcare it is important to understand that any decision is going to be complex because there are two aspects to consider: clinical and non-clinical (Akyürek, Sawalha, & Ide, 2015). This complexity has encouraged the use of evidence-based management in the healthcare industry (Akyürek, Sawalha, & Ide, 2015). By utilizing evidence-based management within the organization, Novant Health UVA Health System Culpeper Medical Center’s Emergency Department would be up to date by having a triage system in place. According to Nahavandi, Denhardt, and Denhardt (2014), successful decision making has clear priorities, a focus on action, clarity, timeliness, measure and reward, as well as measure and reward. By following the recommendations of McHugh, Van Dyke, McClelland, and Moss (2011), adjustments could be made to the organization through a group with the objective of implementing a triage system while using most of the components to successful decision making aforementioned. This team would oversee the implementation of a triage system by conducting the following: identifying performance measure such as calculating the average time a patient waits in the waiting room, prepare the launch of the system by informing all employees of the upcoming change
