Just wondering how other EDs handle patients "holding" or "boarding" in their EDs.
We are a Level II Trauma Center in a suburb of Chicago. We see about 30,000 patients yearly. Our ED is 20 beds: 2 Trauma Rooms, 9 Cardiac Rooms, 3 Med/Surd Rooms and 6 Exp Beds. We are staffed with a charge nurse 24 hours a day and a triage nurse 20 hours a day. We have 4 hurses on the floor 20 hours a day in the main ED, we drop to 3 nurses after 0300. We have 1 nurse in Exp until 1600 then we go up to 2 nurses until they close at 2400.
When we have admitted patients holding, it is VERY rare to get help from the floors. It doesn't seem to matter that we are drowning...the floors seem to be the only ones who are allowed to stick to staffing ratios. It seems like they can never take on an additional patient load and we not only DO everyday...it is the expectation from administration.
I know that holding in the ED is a national problem...I just wondered if anyone'e hospital had come up with something actually workable!!
