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Emergency Department Boarding Stories

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Waiting and waiting

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"We have had several autistic patients without mental illness live in our ED for months at a time. The most recent was this summer, when a 22 yr-old young person with autism lived in our ED for 67 straight days. Every day she begged to go home. Our staff had no control over getting her there - we were waiting and waiting for the state to come up with a solution for them.

This is only one story among so many."

Nowhere to go

In the emergency department we are used to dealing with issues in the setting of minutes and hours.

Heroic efforts

We are a 65 bed peds and adult urban ED, with a baseline of 10-20 boarders in the ED at all times.

35 Boarders

Today, 35 boarders at 7am ranging in waits from three to 31 hours.

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