Pt beds in the hallway

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Not to start an ER vs. Med/Surg/ICU battle, but I attended a class at work that turned ugly. What it boils down to is: ER nurses wanting to add patient beds to the (med/surg/tele/ICU) floors in the hallway, to facilitate moving patients out of the ER quicker. And the hospital is considering it. Has anyone ever heard of this? We're talking about putting sick patients in hospital beds in the hallway and providing patient care there. I see so many things wrong with that picture, but they all thought it was a perfectly acceptable solution to fixing "flow" problems in the ED. Any thoughts on the matter, without starting World War III?

Specializes in Level III cardiac/telemetry.

Can't exactly have much patient privacy in a hospital... Turn over Mr. X, I have some cream for your hemorroids!...or What's that medicine for? Oh, it's for your genital herpes!

Can't imagine having this situation but I've heard of hospitals talking about this.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Orthopedic/General Surgery.

Besides the fact that I believe this to be totally wrong/unsafe, the only response to this thread I can think of is: So are they going to be staffing the nurses to take care of these hall patients or will they be add-on's for the floor nurses? And will the care start when they get to the hallway or when the room gets cleaned and they are moved in. On my Ortho/Surg floor pain medicine, food, and/or water are frequently first requests/demands when patients get to the floor. Are we going to hook up call lights in the hallway with the curtains. I'm laughing so hard right now from the absurdity of the picture that I can hardly finish this. But, it really isn't funny. Hall beds in the ER are a reality and maybe what is next for the floor.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.

They do it in the hospital where I work. I work in NICU so we are not affected like that. We just shove the babies close and close together until we can't accommodate visitors or reach the equipment. I had an infant patient whose mom had to be admitted to our hospital for lap chole and had to stay in the hall most of our stay. That was when I first heard of it. They do make announcements over the PA about something like "code hallway" but I didn't know what that was about until my patient's mom visited and told me where she was staying.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med/Surg, ICU, educator.

I would think that this would be possible HIPAA violation

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.
I would think that this would be possible HIPAA violation

Like neneRn said, my hospital often has as many patients in the halls as we do in the ER bays. Most of my ER bays only have a curtain anyway. Privacy simply does not exist.

As for sitting in the hall on the floor until the room is clean, YEAH! I'm going to suggest it to my hospital, and maybe we can start cutting down on the "the room isn't clean yet" "I'm not ready for that patient" or the best yet: "I forgot to tell you it was ready!" and I only found out it was because housekeeping told me they finished it half an hour ago.

We run as many as 35 people at a time in our 20 bed level 3 trauma ER, not counting the ones out in the waiting rooms. And no, we don't usually get staffed up for it, we also have 2 critical patients assigned to someone who also has 2 more ER patients. Sometimes a floor nurse will be called in to care for the "holdovers", but they aren't oriented to where anything is in the department and are forced to ask a lot of questions (which I am quite willing to answer, but it still takes time).

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Everything but L&D and OR.

I agree with most above. I think it is unsafe and an ethical issue to have "inpatients" in a hallway. I would not want to be one of those patients, or any of my family members either. How can you give quality care in a situation like that? That is like telling the patient "you are not good enough to get a room"!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

This is soooo wrong on so many levels. Starting with privacy and HIPPA and Ending with already overworked and understaffed floor nurses.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Everything but L&D and OR.
This is soooo wrong on so many levels. Starting with privacy and HIPPA and Ending with already overworked and understaffed floor nurses.

amen sister!!!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, ER.

If the hospital is completely full, if the ER is completely full (with hallway patients) and the nearby hospitals are completely full, what else can you do?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Everything but L&D and OR.

i have worked in a hospital that would put stretchers in halls of ER, but NEVER on the floors! The ER just had to go on diversion if that was the case. and this was in a city hopsital.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

We did it back in the 60s. Of course then we also had 6-20 patient wards with no curtains at all. The 6 bed ones were on a glassed in sun porch.....cold in winter warm in summer.

This has got to be illegal and inhumane in so many ways. Fire code? Hipaa? JCAHO? If they're sick enough for ICU they need to be there. If the ER is filling with non urgent patients then they need to be triaged out quickly. This has got to get fixed.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, Med/Surg, Ortho.

This is SOOO wrong. And SOOO scary. You know that as the baby boomers age and the boomer nurses retire that things will only get worse until things like this are standard.

And if nurses are leaving burntout now, how much more short staffed will we be when new nurses work only a few months and then decide the pay simply isn't worth it?

As it is, many are leaving after a few short years.

I cannot imagine having more patients than we have now with even fewer staff. I don't think I could do it.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment