My hospital is about to start a new program that will place 2 hallway beds on each floor to help relieve the number of ER holds. The patients that are placed in these beds will have to be ambulatory since they will have to walk to the visitor bathrooms, as they will not have their own. They will simply be at the end of the hallway, with a curtain.
The hospital recently opened a new floor which is supposed to be ICU step down, but because of the amount of patients holding in the ER, it is currently being used to house the ER hold patients...and is full every day. The opening of this floor for its intended purpose has already been delayed for 2 months because of this. There are days/nights when we are holding 30+ patients that are waiting for beds. They end up being held in PACU and essentially any "closet" administration can find to stick them in. Nurses are pulled from the floors to take care of them, which leaves the floors short-staffed. And this happens EVERY night (I'm a night-shifter). I've asked why we don't transfer patients to other facilities, and the answer I received was 1) there aren't any beds available within 200 miles, and 2) that would mean a higher level of care which the patient doesn't qualify for. I don't know if this is true or not.
The hospital states that there have been studies done that show patient satisfaction is higher with the hallway beds. People feel they are getting better care on the floor, rather than being kept in the ER. I looked online...and sure enough, there are studies that show that. I'm just embarrassed, honestly. We already have hallway beds in the ER, but having them on the floor just seems crazy to me. A patient, a bed, and a curtain! I don't even know how we'll have room for a bedside table! And what about when family visits?
Has anyone had experience with this? Does your hospital do this? I'd love to hear from others on this issue.
There are a lot of things that are 'somewhat' acceptable in an emergency situation, but actually PLANNING to park people in the hallways???? That's just nuts. As PPs have pointed out, facility licensure is based upon the number of beds.. this takes into account the physical, environmental & personnel resources available to provide acceptable services to that number of patients. If they just decide to ignore this and stack patients willy-nilly in any available space, it's a huge problem. This is an egregious violation of not only licensure, but also building safety standards. "Clear hallways" are one of the most basic standards.
Seems like the same type of brilliant leadership that thinks mandatory overtime is an acceptable staffing strategy.
NicuGal, MSN, RN
2,743 Posts
Yup...and our attendings still balked at sending kids to peds or the nursery. The whole turf thing grows old..we could have lost our unit!