Emergency Department Boarding Stories

"We had a 12-month-old patient who presented in respiratory distress and low oxygenation who was found to have pneumonia and required a high amount of oxygen (Optiflo) to maintain his oxygen saturations. After stabilizing him for the interim, we attempted to transfer to a Pediatric ICU (PICU). We were met with not a single open PICU bed in the state, as well as no hospitals with capability to accept transfer in every major city in the surrounding states.

We were met with not a single open PICU bed in the state, as well as no hospitals with capability to accept transfer.

The critically ill child stayed in our emergency department for over 24 hours awaiting acceptance at one of our state's Children's Hospitals and still had an over eight-hour wait for EMS once a bed was available. Luckily, this child started to improve with antibiotics and treatment over those 24 hours though if they had progressed, we may have had to be boarding a child on life support (ventilator) without access to a Pediatric ICU."