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Article
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Forthcoming
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Addressing Emergency Department Boarding Systems and Policies to Protect Patient Health
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James G. Hodge Jr. and Summer Ghaith et al.
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Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics
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SSRN
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Abstract: Emergency department (ED) boarding entails the longstanding hospital practice of temporarily holding admitted patients in the ED due to lack of available inpatient beds. Widespread boarding across urban and rural hospitals has escalated into a national public health crisis creating dangerous gridlock, delaying care for existing and new emergency patients, and significantly increasing the risks of medical errors and mortality. Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have introduced legislative and regulatory proposals to modernize bed tracking and care model innovations. High-level policy accountability and strategic, site-specific prioritization are needed to protect EDs' core clinical missions of assuring the highest quality care for critical need patients.
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