Emergency Department Boarding Stories

“We had a lady present with elevated blood pressure and altered mental status by ambulance who had to wait 90 minutes for a bed due to inpatient boarding, EMS boarding and ED crowding. During that time she decompensated and was found to have an intracranial hemorrhage, of a type we can’t treat at our hospital.

I haven’t seen problems like this since I was in Iraq during the 2006 surge.

She had to be transferred to the university hospital two hours away after a lengthy transfer process. She later died at that university hospital. Had she been able to get to a bed where she could’ve received more rapid treatment her outcome may have been different. We have now taken two providers out of our zones to put in triage as a safety measure, but further reducing our ability to clear patients. I haven’t seen problems like this since I was in Iraq during the 2006 surge.”