Facility Planning-Part I
Facility Planning-Part I HCS/466 Laura Norred January 16, 2012 University of Phoenix Facility Planning-Part I A great need for an urgent care center exists in my community. The emergency department in my community is giving care for the un-insured, and emergencies at the moment. If there was an urgent care center for the ambulatory patients whom are un-insured; this would take a great load off of the emergency department, and would allow the true emergencies to be cared for properly. As of now most services that can be offered in such a setting are done at the hospital as an outpatient service.That service takes up valuable resources that could be used for the inpatient population if an urgent care center existed. The community would be well served by an urgent care center that provides much needed services without the hassle of hospital registration and waiting times.
Patients currently must use valuable space in the community emergency department or travel several miles away to an urgent care center, and most people cannot afford the gas to drive up to thirty miles away for his or her healthcare.Urgent care does not replace your primary care physician. An urgent care center is a convenient option when someone’s regular physician is on vacation or unable to offer a timely appointment. Or, when illness strikes outside of regular office hours, urgent care offers an alternative to waiting for hours in a hospital Emergency Room. The population being served is a small community compared to the larger ones that surround this community. The community consists of many people who are underserved in the area of health care.
The population of people in my community currently must use hospital resources for things that an ambulatory care center can do or travel to the city to seek such services. There is a large population of elderly, uninsured, children, and military. The elderly have a hard time traveling to the doctor’s office let alone to a urgent care center that is in the larger city because the urgent care service isn’t offered in the community, and the emergency department might be too busy for him or her.The uninsured currently rely on an inpatient admission to receive surgical care that could be offered as an outpatient service. The children of the community would be able to receive routine pediatric s care in an outpatient setting leaving complex illnesses for the children’s hospital in the city. To give adequately patients improve and high-quality health care services, there is a call for improvement to the health care amenities and build new ones to maintain the existing ones whereas overextend with the increasing demand of services from different patrons.
Any type of development embarked on should be in line within the finances provisions that are accessible at the moment. Health care services are essential for each person to continued existence and accessible when needed in a location, which is sanitary, and harmless. This is for the welfare of the public and the facility, which is set to develop the reconstruction or extension of the urgent care clinic. Within any business or health care organization there is always a need to use strategic planning. The design should consist of mapping out the objective, idea, and purpose for the project to meet.
The expansion or renovation should have a long-term horizon that measured in years instead of months or weeks. The mapping and expanding of the urgent care center will take time and deliberation with concern to rigid conditions, resources, the scheduling and expansion of the tangible structure and the interior design of the urgent care center. Urgent care centers provide walk-in, extended hour access for acute illness and injury care that is either beyond the scope or availability of the typical primary care practice or retail clinic. “American Academy Of Urgent Care Medicine”, 2012) There are over 8,700 urgent care centers in the US. Urgent care helps to improve both access to care and proper utilization of health system resources. There are many studies by the CDC and others that identify significant numbers of patients who went to an ER that could have been treated in urgent care centers.
The ability of an urgent care center to provide immediate care for acute, non-life threatening illness and injury is a critical component of any community’s health system. “Urgent Care Association Of America”, 2012) Cooperation between patients, primary physicians, emergency departments and urgent care providers can create a network of care options that puts the patient in the right hands at the right time for the right level of care. Reference American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine. (2012). Retrieved from http://aaucm. org/About/UrgentCare/default.
aspx Urgent Care Association of America. (2012). Retrieved from http://www. ucaoa. org/home_abouturgentcare. php
