Running head: CLINICAL DECISION UNIT

Clinical Decision Unit: What is it exactly?
Healthcare is a topic that can be discussed, researched and debated and still never answer many questions. In the hospital environment many people use the Emergency Department as their doctor’s office. Insurance companies require that the doctors closely look at why they are admitting a patient and how long their feel the stay will last. If they feel that it will be less than two midnights, then the patient is admitted as an observation patient to the clinical decision unit. Case managers play an important role in the admission process as well. They are required to screen the patients once admitted to determine if their admission status is appropriate. There are several computer programs available to assist them with this. This is a very important task and according to the American College of Emergency Physicians, “The observation vs. inpatient admission decision is an important one because there are significant consequences for getting it wrong. An inpatient admission that should have been observation can result in payment errors and compliance concerns, and carries the risk of payment denial and lost revenue for the hospital. An observation that should have been an inpatient admission might decrease the revenue that the hospital should have received.”
I currently work on a Clinical Decision Unit. When I was hired six months ago, my unit director told me that the unit had only been open for a year and a half and it was not being utilized properly. She stated the former director was refusing to allow certain patients to be admitted based on their diagnosis or history. Patients with a psychiatric history, those requiring a sitter and patients who were intoxicated are just a few she refused. My unit director stated that the only patient population we were not permitted to treat on