title: Solutions to emergency department 'boarding' and crowding are underused and may need to be legislated.
abstract: The practice of keeping admitted patients on stretchers in hospital emergency department hallways for hours or days, called "boarding," causes emergency department crowding and can be harmful to patients. Boarding increases patients' morbidity, lengths of hospital stay, and mortality. Strategies that optimize bed management reduce boarding by improving the efficiency of hospital patient flow, but these strategies are grossly underused. Convincing hospital leaders of the value of such solutions, and educating patients to advocate for such changes, may promote improvements. If these strategies do not work, legislation may be required to effect meaningful change.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, USA. elaine.rabin@mssm.edu
authors.forename: Elaine
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rabin
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kocher
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McClelland
authors.forename: Jesse
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pines
authors.forename: Ula
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.forename: Niels
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rathlev
authors.forename: Brent
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Asplin
authors.forename: N Seth
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Trueger
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Weber
mesh_terms: D003441:Crowding; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006742:Hospital Bed Capacity; D017721:Hospital Costs; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D010343:Patient Admission; D010351:Patient Discharge; D014481:United States