Boarding Patients in the ER
Every day gets more miserable for everyone
This is my column at Medpage Today on ER boarding.
It’s about why you or your loved one can’t get beds when you’re admitted the hospital, and why ER waits are so long.
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Well said. I find the mention of EmPath units interesting in the comments. When I retired two years ago, our administration had closed the Behavioral Assessment Unit in the ED; it had functioned quite well for many years, but then when our state psychiatric hospitals had beds shut down by the federal government, transferring patients in need of care at those facilities became a nightmare. A friend of mine who has only worked psych her entire career worked in that unit for several years and said that the problem now is that patients are much more prone to violence. The havoc drugs has wrought on their brains has literally rewired them and they are extremely resistant to many medications (as I am sure you have noticed.) Add to this the lack of inpatient treatment for alcohol/drug dependence (there are literally NO programs in our area for that, everything is outpatient here.) An "intermediate care unit" was created that was supposed to house medically complicated behavioral health patients; however, due to beds at capacity everywhere, it was a constant battle to place other patients in there.