How Hospital Overcrowding Affects Patient Safety

One of the top complaints made by patients and healthcare professionals in recent years is that hospitals are too overcrowded with people in need of medical care. This issue doesn't just happen in emergency departments either. Complaints span all departments, including diagnostic areas, inpatient wards, physical therapy, and even the pharmacy, cafeteria and gift shop. Although hospital staff members can experience burnout and some accidental injuries from overcrowded working conditions, patients usually suffer more serious long-term injuries and sometimes die. In many cases, overcrowding was a preventable problem.

Why Does Hospital Overcrowding Happen?

Many administrators and other staff at hospitals claim that the top reason for overcrowding is non-preventable high demand from patients, coupled with limited critical resources. After all, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and subsequent national and international healthcare and economic events have caused supply and demand issues.

For example, many medical personnel developed post-COVID syndrome, passed away or burned out during and after the crisis, which has resulted in staffing shortages. Many patients also waited to receive preventative care or delayed treatments for a wide range of conditions.

Additionally, advances in modern medicine have allowed humans to live longer. Populations near hospitals usually contain a high number of patients in need of care for age-related and chronic conditions. Overcrowding also occurs during expected emergencies, such as large infrastructure and traffic accidents, natural events, and seasonal surges of respiratory and other illnesses.

Yet, many primary care doctors also fail to educate their patients about non-emergency medical issues or the importance of using urgent care facilities instead of hospitals after hours for mild-to-moderate emergencies. Hospital administrators often refuse to spend money on important infrastructure expansions and upgrades that could allow for more patient traffic and improve efficiency, such as building additions that provide more ED and inpatient areas and beds and overflow zones for patient registration and discharge.

The Negative Outcomes of Overcrowded Hospitals

Overcrowding caused by poor management in departments and the hospital as a whole risks patient safety. For example, a manager might force tired staff members to work longer-than-recommended hours or back-to-back shifts with limited breaks. These types of schedules increase errors. An overcrowded room can even cause a well-rested member of staff to provide a post-exam patient with the wrong follow-up treatment paperwork or prescription.

A registered patient might sit in a waiting room chair or in a bed in a hallway for hours because they were forgotten during a separate emergency that one or more staff members considered a more important matter. Overcrowding can demotivate a patient to the point that they give up trying to receive care. Without diagnosis and treatment when hours, minutes or seconds matter, they might experience a longer recovery time, permanent injury or death.

Lastly, hospital administrators are required to provide patients with safe spaces. Yet too many people packed into rooms and hallways turn a hospital into the perfect hunting ground for human predators and create stressful conditions that flare tempers among patients, concerned visitors, and staff members, which can result in violence. Areas filled with people or above capacity can even make it harder for security personnel to do their jobs. For example, a technician monitoring security cameras might miss a thief moving through a crowd. A guard might fail to catch a criminal if too many people block the flow-through traffic areas.

How Can a Medical Malpractice Lawyer Help?

A patient or their loved one who feels that injury or death resulted from overcrowding caused by negligence has the right to seek fair compensation for their medical expenses, reduced or terminated employment, and other losses and suffering in a local court. An experienced medical malpractice lawyer reviews the case to determine if a hospital, a member of the staff, vendor or any other party affiliated with the hospital caused the overcrowding through negligence. A legal professional can help decrease a victim’s stress and worry and perform all the necessary tasks required to file and win this type of lawsuit.