Moral Implications of Emergency Department Crowding

Abstract

Emergency Department (ED) crowding, defined as "an extreme volume of patients in ED treatment areas, forcing the ED to operate beyond its capacity" has become a public health crisis in the United States. ED crowding can lead to compromised care which threatens the moral values medicine has been built upon (Cowan and Trzeciak 2005). This thesis offers a brief history of the development of hospital based EDs to demonstrate the origins of ED crowding, then moves on to analyze the moral dilemmas posed by crowding. It examines the causes of ED crowding and potential solutions to the issue, and concludes with brief remarks about how the health care system might be reformed to alleviate the burden of crowded EDs.