Anyone else with higher than normal volumes?

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Specializes in Med/Surg; Critical Care/ ED.

The post by erdiane brought up something I've been thinking about. We have had an outrageous number of pt's the last 3-4 weeks, it's been BRUTAL. Now, I know I work in a small hospital, our ED has 13 beds. I work 7p-7a,staffed w/ 2 nurses after 9pm and 2 nurses after 2am on the weekends. It has been my experience so far that we are usually pretty busy until around midnight or so, then it slacks off til around 4 - 5 am when people start waking up and come in. For the last month or so, I've come in to anywhere from 10 - 15 people in the waiting room, a packed house in the back, and it does NOT STOP until 3 - 4 am. And by does not stop, I mean people are coming in to be triaged until then. LOTS of people. And like erdiane, we are not able to stop for our full breaks, although sometimes I can heat up my meal and grab a bite occasionally when I walk by. I'm not really complaining about that, I work with great people and we have a great team atmosphere. I'm just wondering if anyone else has noticed a higher volume than normal FOR THEIR ED SIZE lately.

PH

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Specializes in Oncology/Haemetology/HIV.

If you are in a "sunbelt" state, that is business as usual at this time of the year.

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Specializes in Med/Surge, ER.

YES!! We have been really busy since October 06, and each month seems to be getting busier. I also work 7p-7a, in a little larger ER, 27 beds, and most evenings I go in to a full dept, 8-10 in the waiting room, and 8-10 to be triaged. It stays like that most all night, where we used to calm down at about 2 am until 5am. I remember one Saturday, about 2 months ago, we had all 27 rooms full, 8 hall patients, 36 in waiting, and 18 to be triaged!! And we did all this with 4 nurses, and 3 docs!! IT SUCKED!!!

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Specializes in Tele, ICU, ER.

You want sucked? Try a full house, full WR and ONE doc on from midnight to 7am. Half the time the poor doc who leaves at midnight (one of hte doc shifts is 12p-12a) ends up staying over to help clear the mess.

Not only has our volume increased insanely (yep we have snowbirds!) but the acuity has gone through the roof! I'm tired...

On the last of a 5 night stretch tonite, pray for me.

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Specializes in 6 years of ER fun, med/surg, blah, blah.

I came in this morning to find 26 border patients & 15 patients waiting to come back to be seen, some of which had some workups done while in Triage. Our ED has 36 beds & we just opened a Psych ED with 10 beds. The day before 40 some patients were waiting in Triage. It's been crazy!! Why? There has been some snow early in the week but still they come in. What gives?

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Specializes in Emergency.

We are getting slammed too! Must be something in the air.

We are a small Level II ED - only 13 beds. Yesterday we saw over 80 pts. It doesn't seem like much, but for us it is huge!

I swear all 80 came in between 8a-2p. Lunch was ordered up for us, but we didn't even get a chance to get to the sack lunches.

I am not sure what is going on, but I DON"T LIKE IT! Make it stop!

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Specializes in ER.

We have had a huge number of patients for the past month and staff has been overwhelmed, especially because we are short right now. We have been getting an increase in both the seriously ill folks and the people who are coming in for superficial things because they can't or won't see their private physicians. Patients have become more irritable and around 3 pm and will start yelling at whoever is doing triage. Continual questioning about how long are they going to have to wait and why did that person go before me, I was here first or that person doesn't look sick at all! Our ED is designed that both fast track and higher acuity patients use the same entryway into the ED thus people become more irritable when they see the 16 year old who was laughing and smiling in the lobby being taken in before them. Worst of all is people have no compassion for those who are truly ill. By God I don't care if that 55 year old man is walking into the department diaphoretic and clutching his chest...he better not get pulled before me.....:sniff:

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Specializes in Day Surgery/Infusion/ED.

It has been horrendously busy, in addition to having numerous holds because med-surg can't take the pts. Last night was particularly hateful.

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Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

We've been insanely busy as well, far more than our usual swamped. Monday night had 17 admissions on the board, 20 or so in the waiting room, and we are a 20 bed level 3 trauma center. Had 10 or 11 patients on beds in the halls, all 20 rooms full, everybody kept coming and coming.

We used to clear out by 2 or 3, then just the people coming in the door instead of backed up. Almost every night we can't clear the waiting room or get all the admissions into the hospital.

We are told ER will just have to handle it, with ICU/CCU admits holding, and no extra nurses to provide 1:2 care; yet ICU can't go up to 1:3 because "its not safe".

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I agree.. it's been crazy. I'm a unit coordinator on a peds/gyn surgery floor.. we also get overflow medical patients. We have 18 beds, with 4 of them being privates. Just this last shift we got 3 surgicals and 5 ER admits. Since most kidlets are coming in with gastro or RSV... we have to block some of our doubles. Tonight I had to find new beds for 4 of our adult patients on other floors before we could get the kid admits in. This whole week, we've settled our surgical patients only to move them at 8 or 9pm to an entire different unit, just to accommodate the peds. Poor surgicals.. must really suck for them!! First it's like playing Tetris to get in our patients and match sexes and ages... then it's musical beds all evening long. ARGGHHHHH...Just worked 17 hours because of a snowstorm... and have to be back in the AM. Guess the only benefit is that we are now pretty much full.

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Specializes in ER, Occ Health.

No diffrent where I am at either. It seems that all hospitals in our area are having the same problem (Seattle area). Over the last two months or so we do not slow down at all. We have a 20 bed ED and the beds stay full all night long. The acuity have gone through the roof and we spend alot of time transfering patients to hospitals with an open inpatient bed because all the hospitals stay full daily. When you only have 3 RN's and one doc things get pretty hairy.

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so what exactly is "fast track"?

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