Number of beds and daily census

[Lunah]

As some of you know, I'm working in an Army ER. I'll say right off the bat that our numbers seem crazy to me. We are seeing 100+ patients a day -- we seem to average around 110. Okay, fine ... but here's the kicker: we only have 11 beds. Yes, really. There are 4 additional beds in our urgent care/fast track area, but that is only open and staffed from 0900 to 2100, so we have 15 beds for only half the day, and the other half we are running only 11 beds. On nights (my shift), sometimes toward the end of our mid-level provider's shift (they usually leave at midnight), we'll load up the fast track area and put some easy-in-easy-out ESI Level 4-type patients through them, but ... yeah, mostly 11 beds. I am coming from a 15-bed ER where I worked full-time since 2005, and I think our "worst" crazy day was 70-something patients. Maybe the difference is that we never slow down at night in my current ER? I don't know. I'm just amazed that we push 110 patients through 11-15 beds on a daily basis. Do those numbers seem crazy to anyone else?

I'm looking on the ENA site to find some statistics, but not finding much on a patient-per-bed-per-day level. Anyone have any resources?

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

I am going to find out our norms my next shift. I know we say way more people then we have room for. By afternoon the waiting room is filled and all the beds and 3-4 beds in the hallway. We were talking about it today in our ED training. My hospital is building a new ED though, breaking ground in the summer and it will take about 18 months from breaking ground to opening doors. We get a giant amount of traffic because we are the only level 2 trauma in the state and have a helo and the airforce base is 10 mins away so they all come too. Also located right off of 2 major HWY's with really harsh winter conditions.

I know all the nurses said they can't wait until the new ED is here and the hospital plans on doubling the staff so they will have a lot of new ED positions about 6 months prior. They already have a huge amount of Nurses for the small ED because of all the overflow.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

We have 17 beds. That includes our fast track beds and our 1 psych bed. We have 4 hallway beds on top of that. We try to avoid using those but we often have to. We see on average 150 patients a day. When our new ED is built we will have double that and will double our space and expect to still stay packed. A good amount of our patients are Airforce.