Dr. Adams on crisis surrounding emergency rooms
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The American College of Emergency Physicians is sounding the alarm on what it calls a crisis surrounding on-patient boarding in the emergency rooms. Drew Blair asked WISH-TV’S medical expert and former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Jerome Adams, about the situation.
Dr. Jerome Adams: On patient boarding is where admitted patients are held down in the emergency room department instead of being sent to an inpatient room because there aren’t enough beds on the floor for them to go to. And the reason this is a problem is multifactorial.
Emergency departments aren’t equipped to deal with patients who are supposed to be admitted. If you’re an ICU patient you may need a higher level of care. If you’re a psychiatric patient you may need a different kind of care than what they can provide in the emergency.
Another problem is it stops people who have problems in the waiting room from being able to come into the emergency department and get a bed. And we’ve heard horrific cases of patients dying in the waiting room while waiting to be seen because the emergency departments are full. It’s already a stressful scenario, no matter what the situation, but to then add on top of that? I can only imagine
Drew: What have you heard about how this problem is affecting Indiana hospitals?
Adams: As you know I work at Eskenazi. When you look at downtown Indy, I think the hospitals do a pretty good job of working with one another and helping them understand if they’re full, to divert patients to other places.
The problem is when you get on the outskirts and out to the suburbs and rural communities. You may have a five bed emergency department that can easily become overwhelmed. So, this is a problem across the nation. Indianapolis and the central Indiana region are in a better situation than most. But with an uptick in cases of RSV or COVID or flu…we’re really concerned that many of these hospitals and emergency departments could be pushed to the breaking point.