The Rest of the Story ED Crowding
&NA; · Emergency Medicine News · 2008
It comes as no surprise to emergency physicians that boarding causes crowding, but the recent ACEP crowding report should help them convince hospital administrators that ED boarding is a practice long overdue for the tar pit. The report, “Emergency Department Crowding: High-Impact Solutions,” notes that “only when all stakeholders agree that the problem is systemic and hospital-wide can solutions be implemented that will improve patient flow from triage to discharge and protect everyone's access to emergency care.” To read the ACEP Task Force report, click here. The task force included an illustrious panel of emergency physicians, nonemore so than Peter Viccellio,MD, who was the first to point to boarding as a significant cause of ED crowding in an editorial in Emergency Medicine News in August 2000. Read Dr. Viccellio's groundbreaking editorial below.