Hospital Dumping

Nurses General Nursing

Published

How many of you have received a transfer from another facility that was inappropriate? This last week, we received a transfer from a facility out of state, who had been admitted there for DKA and was transferred to us for skilled care for "a few days" at least the doc at our facility was led to believe that she was stable. This woman presented to us in 5 point restraints, confused as all get out, and this person did not appear to be medically stable. 4 hours later we were shipping her to a neighboring hospital (we do not have ICU) with a pH of 7.18 and a bs of over 700 sliding downhill even as we watched. I know that occasionally things happen, but I am very upset that this patient was misrepresented. She was on medicare--and came to us from a private hospital. Looking back on the notes, she did not appear stable in writing either. It just seems like she was dumped on us. Thanks for letting me vent

IT JUST STEAMS ME!!!

by the way, I called to check on our patient, and she is doing better, but is still very unstable--2 days later.

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OMGoodness! If I had a dime for every dump admission I got. Change of mental staus is popular.

But the most memorable one was the transfer from out of state for a GI bleed patient (can't remember the reason for the transfer)

They shipped him off knowing full well his hemeglobin was about 5!!!!!!

They should thank their lucky stars he didn't stroke out when we moved him off the gurney!

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Specializes in Neuro Critical Care.

petiteflower-

I had to check and see if you were working at my hospital. The same thing happened a couple weeks ago, we were getting a transfer who had hypoglycemia (come to find out her blood sugar was 71). She was eventually put in 4-point restraints and ended up in MICU with thyroid storm.

The other pt we got was transferred from another floor in our hospital. She was transferred with confusion, when we got her on the bed she was blue and we ended up having to code her on my floor. Apparently the pt kept calling the MD from her room to tell him she was having a heart attack and he thought she was confused. WRONG!!

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Specializes in obstetrics(high risk antepartum, L/D,etc.

I was working LTC and received a lady at 11:30 P M. I swear it was an "emergency" transfer from a local hospital that has really good statistics. She arrived in Cheyne-Stokes and was already cold, mottled, non-responsive and died within 30 minutes of arrival. Is that reverse dumping?

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Wow, I guess this happens everywhere. I work agency in a few hospitals and I see it everywhere. Sometimes there are no ICU beds available at one hospital so they send a patient to another facility.I hope I am wrong about this but I have seen patients that do not have good insurance or any insurance get transferred from a hospital, claim the patient is stable and send a train wreck to you. Well that has been my observation but I guess that is management's mess to straighten out.

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ooohhhh.....change in mental status...my favorite diagnosis :)

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