Emergency Department Boarding Stories

"Nursing staffing shortages (nursing) on the floors keep beds closed to admissions, so they back up in the ED, and nursing staffing shortages in the ED keep orders from being completed in a timely manner. The net effect? On an average day between a third and half of our ED beds are admission holds. Nor is it unheard of to have 80+% of our ED beds filled with holds. So we clinicians (physicians, PAs & NPs) are forced to see patients, not in hallways (how we long for those days!) but in the waiting room - the WORST place for privacy and dignity, or anything resembling a thorough H&P.

"We clinicians are forced to see patients, not in hallways (how we long for those days!) but in the waiting room..."

Then, what orders are entered often take several hours to get done. I've had chest pain patients wait for more than three hours to get a troponin drawn. This is not a federal or policymaker issue, it a local issue! Until C-suites decide—or are forced - to do what they need to do to recruit and retain good nurses (it isn't rocket science: good pay and good staffing ratios!) this will continue to the detriment of patients and the constant moral injury will continue to destroy careers. This problem can be laid squarely at the feet of hospital C-suites and administrators, who have never had any skin in the game—even before a worldwide pandemic."