The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires emergency rooms to evaluate, treat and stabilize emergency room patients regardless of ability to pay. Thishas been referred to as an unfunded mandate. You are an emergency department manager at Big Health Hospital.Your hospital is in a large city and serves the needs of the inner city as well as visitors who are injured while visiting the city.You have grappled with problems of overcrowding and have the following metrics:

Door to doctor time:130minutes

Decision to transfer time: 390 minutes

Decision to discharge time:115 minutes

Patients Left without being seen (LWBS) percentage: 24%

You have been asked to develop a strategic plan to improve emergency room care. The plan must be presented to the Executive VP of Hospital Operations for approval prior to implementation.

How you would develop a strategic plan?(Don't develop an actual plan, but be specific about what you would include in your plan) The plan should:

A.Comply with EMTALA

B.Improveone of the key metrics AND

C.Address the issue of emergency department overcrowding.

D.Explain what your plan would involve and how it would meet these three requirements.

Question:

1.Explain the resources that would be required to implement your plan in terms of people, time, and money.

2.Describe the argumentsyou would make to the Executive VP in support of your plan and describe how it will benefit the hospital.

Links:

1.St. Anthony Hospital v. HHS (10^thcircuit) on reverse dumping athttps://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-10th-circuit/1432730.html. Evaluate the court decision and indicate whether you agree or disagree with the court and the reasons it relied on to reach its conclusion.Include case examples in your response.

2.HHS Georgia Hospital Settlement dated 4-20-2020 athttps://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/enforcement/cmp/cmp-ae.asp(Scroll down the page) State whether you would have agreed to the settlement agreement if you were an executive with Georgia Hospital. Evaluate the pros and cons of accepting the agreement instead of going to court, and factors to consider in deciding whether to settle a case.

Reform: The Supreme Court Once Again Upholds the Affordable Care Act:https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/supreme-court-once-again-votes-to-uphold-the-affordable-care-act/

Health Policy in 2017 Kaiser News:https://khn.org/news/podcast-what-the-health-2017-the-year-in-health-policy/

Video shows hospital guards "dumping" patient in freezing cold:https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-captures-video-of-patient-dumping-outside-baltimore-hospital/

Court Role and Structure:http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/court-role-and-structure

Comparing Federal & State Courts:http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/court-role-and-structure/comparing-federal-state-courts

Hill Burton:https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/hill-burton/index.html

Solis, l. & Guyer. M. (2010). Hospitals' Obligations Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law; 38(4) 610-612.http://jaapl.org/content/38/4/610