Hospital Capacity Management: Insights and Strategies details many of the key processes, procedures and administrative realities which make up the healthcare system we all encounter when we visit the ER or the hospital. It walks through, in detail, how these systems work, how they came to be this way, why they are setup as they are, and then, in many cases, why and how they should be improved right now. Many examples are pulled from the lifelong experiences of the authors, from published studies and from well-documented case studies are provided, both to illustrate and to support arguments for change. First and foremost, it is necessary to remember that the mission of our healthcare system is to take care of patients. This has been forgotten at times, causing many of the issues the authors discuss in the book including hospital capacity management. This facet of healthcare management is absolutely central to the success or failure of a hospital, both in terms of its delivery of care and its ability to survive as an institution. Poor hospital capacity management is a root cause of long wait times, overcrowding, higher error rates, poor communication, low satisfaction and a host of other commonly experience problems. It is important enough that when it is done well, it can completely transform an entire hospital system. Hospital capacity management can be described as optimizing a hospital’s bed availability to provide enough capacity for efficient, error-free patient evaluation, treatment and transfer, to meet daily demand. A hospital that excels at capacity management is easy to spot. No lines of people waiting, no patients in hallways or sitting around in chairs. These hospitals don’t divert incoming ambulances to other hospitals; they have excellent patient safety records and efficiently move patients through their organization. They exist but are sadly in the minority of American hospitals. The vast majority instead are forced to constantly react to their own poor performance. Often this results in the building of bigger and bigger institutions, which, instead of managing capacity simple create more space in which to mismanage it. These institutions are failing to resolve the true stumbling blocks to excellent patient care, many of which you may have experienced firsthand in your own visit to your hospital. It is the hope of the authors that this book will provide a better understanding of the healthcare delivery system.