Emergency room overcrowding has been one of the most prevalent issues facing the healthcare field since 1980, and it has had negative effects on the overall functionality and efficiency provided to hospital patients across the nation. It causes problems for not only an emergency department (ED) alone, but for the entire hospital it serves.  Some of the driving reasons for reducing ED overcrowding include improving quality of care, safety, health, and overall improved experience for patients. Mobile Healthcare Facilities, LLC. (MHCFAC) has helped many clients to expand their hospitals by providing a unique emergency room expansion solution customized to each client’s specific needs. A mobile emergency room expansion can make a difference in how the ED functions and elevate the quality of patient care.  

The existing issue of overcrowding in emergency departments was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a high influx of new patients for hospitals to handle, presenting a pressing need to seek further solutions to overcrowding. In a 2022 article, Yale Researcher Alexander Janke stated, “Hospitals must have some flexible capacity so there are places for patients with emergencies requiring hospitalization to go, and that capacity doesn’t exist in a lot of places.” A lack of additional space and beds for hospitalization causes ED patients to stay in the same beds, so the ED remains occupied, unable to efficiently admit and treat more patients with urgent issues. These problems raise the number of patients who leave without accessing care and cause difficulty for the surrounding communities who depend on the ED. 

Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, located in Richmond, California, provided temporary emergency room capacities in their parking lot using a tent in 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Post-pandemic, the state of California shut down the use of tent structures as temporary emergency rooms, so they were able to replace the tent with a mobile ED facility from MHCFAC, increasing their ED capacity by 30%.  This scenario is just one example of MHCFAC’s efforts to assist with expanding hospitals’ capacity and alleviating overcrowding concerns during unprecedented situations. 

Unfortunately, a decline in COVID-19 cases over the last few years has not mitigated the issue of overcrowding hospitals. According to Mary Chris Jaklevic in an article from the Association of Healthcare Journalists, researchers predict that an “overall national hospital occupancy will reach an unsafe level by 2032”, which could likely lead to higher mortality rates and excess deaths in hospitals across America.  

Another MHCFAC client facing needs for ED expansion was the University of Alabama (UAB) Medical Center. They increased their ED capacity by 50% by using mobile units from MHCFAC, which allowed them a temporary solution to meet patient demand as they continued to build and expand their current ED. 

Emergency room expansion has the potential to play a significant role in hospitals across the country in the upcoming years, including in the mobile healthcare space. MHCFAC offers a solution tailored to individual situations and enables each hospital to meet their own needs for expansion.