Ambulance pts in waiting room

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How common is it in your ER to put a totally NON-EMERGENT ambulance pt in the waiting room?

I've read lots of posts and c/o about putting bogus amb pts in rooms, why not send them to the waiting room???

Is there some sort of law against doing this? Of course, I mean only the obvious BS ones, like FFs with chronic back pain, stubbed toe, toothaches, etc. I've only seen it done a couple of times, so is it more common in big cities with bigger ERs?

Specializes in CCU/ER.

Our EMS will often call report stating, "We're enroute to your facility with blah blah blah.... Please be aware this pt is a Code 1." Or they end with We'll need a wheelchair at the back door, please."

That's our sign that this pt is taking a quick trip to triage! Works great!

:rolleyes:

Specializes in Emergency/Critical Care Transport.

After riding "the bus" (paramedic slang for ambulance) for many years I can tell you that I've gotten out of my nice cozy bunk at 3 in am for toothaches, sinus congestion, lacerations that don't even require a bandaid to close and even one lady who said she was having sex her boyfriend and that "his member is too big." She was not injured but wanted to see if there was something wrong with her lady partsl accomdation ability. Now that I work the ED, those folks get right up off the stretcher and are escorted to triage, where they belong.

Isn't it refreshing to know that stupid people have very efficiently scattered themselves across the country...

So as not to overload and completely piss off just one ER!!

:rotfl:

In our adult ER, there is no such thing as a waiting room. Once triaged, the patients get brought in to the ER immediately, no matter how they come in. (and urgent care, respectively). at night, we have a certain area that we just put the BS cases. (what we call the BULLS**T area). They can wait there forever sometimes.

By having people wait in the waiting room creates a liability for the condition and safety of that patient. If ANY patient dies or worsens in the waiting room, the hosp is liable. also, by keeping people in the ER on arrival, we get to watch them better while they wait, so no one is shooting up in the waiting room, or fighting with each other. it is also better because the doctors can see how much work they have to do and lights a fire up their butts.

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Traumaintheslot - We also do the "straight to the ER" routine. However, we don't have unlimited rooms - so we do use the waiting room. Just curious, how many rooms do you have and what is volume? We have 20 rooms and see 60,000/year.

we see anywhere from 100k to 125k per year. we have 9 big rooms that hold 2 stretchers each and 4 isolation rooms(which can hold 2 pts each when not isolated), and an asthma room that has about 10 chairs. thats just the adult emergency room. all of the rooms have monitors, and most of out patients requiring monitors go into them. most of the time, we will double and even triple in the rooms, theres plenty of hallway space to "make your own rooms", which we have to do, and it makes it tough to give patients adequate privacy sometimes. we will put them in the room, get them undressed, have them examined, and then pull them out and put them in the hallway. most patients that we serve and poor and are extremely appreciative of the care we give them, and dont seem to mind.

we have a two bed trauma slot where we run our traumas and critical resuscitations from the field . we also have a 10 bed urgent care area and a peds er, and a 10 bed "ICU" right in the ER called the "emergency ward". this unit gets most of the critical care admitted patients.

there is a website that shows you interactive view of the ER at Bellevue. (not live..lol) you can see it at:

http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/hhc/bellevue/html/emergency_dept.html

it shows everything but the adult emergency room and the urgent care center. hope you enjoy it.

we see about 38,000 a year now and have 20 beds in our ed. 14 beds are main er and 6 are fast track. all 14 of the main er are monitored.

we are full most of the time...most days.

we hold all the time.

we, too, triage straight back if beds are open...hallway or otherwise...but we DO have a limit.

traumaintheslot, what do you do when you have hit your capacity of hallway beds and floor space?

we are lucky to not hold many patients. our patients get dispo'd and discharged fast, and get upstairs when admitted. you just make room. we have our own personal ct scanner(15 feet away) and we have the reading before the patient gets transported back to the ER. thank god our ed is huge and we can stick hundreds of patients in one department if we have to. sometimes we have to line up patients against the wall with the head of the stretcher against the wall. we can only leave room for my chubby body to fit between the stretchers. so much for pt privacy and hippa.

Specializes in Emergency Room/corrections.

we commonly place non urgent ambulance patients in the waiting room. We live in a community where virtually every household has a med scanner, they know how busy we are by listening to the radio, some of them call 911 because they think they can be seen faster. It doesnt work :rolleyes:

Specializes in ER, ICU, L&D, OR.

I liked this one

And EMS unit dispatched to an Car wreck, after examining all involved no one required or requested transport to the ER

Except one lady who had witnessed the accident and decided that this upset her so much, that she needed to be transported.

Gotta love it

I liked this one

And EMS unit dispatched to an Car wreck, after examining all involved no one required or requested transport to the ER

Except one lady who had witnessed the accident and decided that this upset her so much, that she needed to be transported.

Gotta love it

So do ya think you can sue someone for witnessing such a "horrific" accident, where no one was injured...you know... for pain and suffering?!!?

Just askin'

:rolleyes:

Shhh. Don't let a lawyer see that. We don't want to give them any more ideas than they already have. :chuckle

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