Reference no: EM133849190

Question

You are a registered nurse working in a rural, critical access emergency department with limited healthcare services and no specialized medical care. The community has high rates of poverty, unemployment, and drug use. You have noticed that patients regularly use the emergency department as they would a primary care provider, coming in for minor issues such as colds and ear infections, and failing to follow-up with a primary or specialized care provider or complete required laboratory tests for management of their plan of care. These visits, in addition to patients arriving by ambulance and those with other medical emergencies, keep the 10 bed emergency room full and often result in patients waiting 2 hours or more to be seen by a provider.