Emergency Department Boarding Stories

Table of Contents

Boarding in the Emergency Department
ED Boarding Overview
No end in sight
No privacy and no rest
Awaiting acceptance
Not safe
Everything with nothing
Interrupting patient care
In the waiting room
An afterthought
Not a safe situation
New placement
We need help
Acts of bravery
In the hallway
No space
Psychiatric holds
My plea
Full
Why?
Patients hate it
A commitment to provide rapid care
And so they stay
Waiting and waiting
Emergent conditions
Nowhere to go
Heroic efforts
35 Boarders
Verge of collapsing
Make waves
Slumped in their chair
Please do something
At the breaking point
No beds
The health of our nation
Moral injury
Something has to be done
No nurses
ED never closes
People keep coming
Dangerously Overcrowded
Our most vulnerable patients
No open PICU beds
In shock
A crisis!
Not uncommon
The patients overflow
Social safety net
Rooms no bigger than closets
I hope I make it
Unsustainable
Sick kids are stuck
Feel human
Trapped
High costs
Frightened and in pain
Languishing
For days to weeks
Awaiting inpatient psychiatric care
Help needed—to say the least!
Leave without being seen
It's a tragedy
Without privacy
No net at all
Do the math
Burnout
In dire straits
Boarding in the ER hallway
Diversion
Children's hospitals throughout the country
Timely transfer
Looking for beds
No limits
Snapshot
Severe overcrowding
Wait list
Killing the morale
Hopeless and beaten down
Drowning
Over four weeks in the emergency department
Getting numb
Every available space
No sign of easing up
A national issue
Our sickest patients
Since I was in Iraq
Needle in a haystack
Bed assignment
The new reality
Hallway beds
Transfer
Budget issues
Skin in the game
Zero beds available
No room to go
Yes, boarding is bad
Crash and burn
Underserved, under resourced
Life-threatening issue
My last shift
Died unnoticed
It is only a matter of time
MacGyver solutions
Killing our patients

Looking for beds

"We had a 72 y/o Native American male who had a new stroke on CAT Scan. We are a free standing ER on a reservation with no inpatient beds. We called four states looking for beds and were put on wait lists at several facilities in [state]. Staff called every shift trying to get a bed, but after three days of sitting in an ER bed we sent him home with outpatient follow up."

Timely transfer

No limits

Snapshot

Today’s 8 am system snapshot: We have three EDs with beds of 75 (45 staffed), 42, 11 respectively.

Severe overcrowding

Severe overcrowding in ED (HOLDS) and waiting room (WR) (2nd to no ED beds).

Wait list

In a state known for education and health care, MA, we are a small hospital without many resources.