I work in a large ER that has an 8 bed behavioral health locked unit where BH patient's are held until being admited to the 2nd floor psych unit. They are to be evaluated by a psychiatrist withing 16 hours of coming to the ER so that complete orders can be written. ALL patient's (and I mean ALL) that have any complaint of suicidal ideations gets a 1 on 1 sitter. Usually the sitter is a tech that gets pulled from an assignment in the ER to sit with these patients:angryfire I was doing charge one day last week and we were holding 18 BH patient's in our ER because psych was full!! It seems that the patient's have learned that if they come to the ER and say "I think I might kill myself" that they automatically get a room and a sitter to keep them company to make sure that don't hang themselves with a gown! I don't mean to sound harsh....but I am extremely frustrated.
There are 2 other BH/detox facilities in our area also that stay full, so transfers to other facilities is only an option about half of the time.
Is anyone else having this problem? Management is still "looking into a solution":icon_roll
gentle_ben_RN, ASN
119 Posts
thanks for the input guys. have a great week!