Comments on: ER Patient Dies Waiting for Treatment http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/11/01/er-patient-dies-waiting-for-treatment/ Cleaning the Augean Stables of the Health Care Debate Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:31:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: drmatt http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/11/01/er-patient-dies-waiting-for-treatment/#comment-9572 drmatt Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:37:29 +0000 http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/11/01/er-patient-dies-waiting-for-treatment/#comment-9572 Are you under the sad and unfortunate impression that things like this doen't happen in private hospitals? If so, you clearly have a lot of homework to do. Are you under the sad and unfortunate impression that things like this doen’t happen in private hospitals? If so, you clearly have a lot of homework to do.

]]> By: Marc Brown http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/11/01/er-patient-dies-waiting-for-treatment/#comment-9565 Marc Brown Thu, 01 Nov 2007 15:07:06 +0000 http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/11/01/er-patient-dies-waiting-for-treatment/#comment-9565 So only public hospitals have problems? Clearly the most overcrowded, underfunded hospitals serving poorer populations are likely to have worse outcomes, but overall as we've seen on your blog before your emergency department system as a whole is in meltdown. The IoM's report, Hospital-Based Emergency Care: At the Breaking Point. is required reading (see http://www.iom.edu/?id=35025) and here's a poll done a month ago: 'Nearly 80 percent (1,200 of 1,496) of emergency physicians responding to a poll said they had grave concerns about the crowded conditions in their emergency departments. Half of the physicians had personally encountered a patient who had suffered because of "boarding," a practice in which admitted emergency patients wait for an inpatient bed in the hospital, often in hallways, while 200 of them said they knew of a patient who had died because of the practice, according to the results of a poll released by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) during the organization's annual meeting in Seattle.' (Respondents worked in community hospitals (64.6 percent), teaching hospitals (31.8 percent) and public hospitals (2 percent). So only public hospitals have problems? Clearly the most overcrowded, underfunded hospitals serving poorer populations are likely to have worse outcomes, but overall as we’ve seen on your blog before your emergency department system as a whole is in meltdown.

The IoM’s report, Hospital-Based Emergency Care: At the Breaking Point. is required reading (see http://www.iom.edu/?id=35025) and here’s a poll done a month ago:

‘Nearly 80 percent (1,200 of 1,496) of emergency physicians responding to a poll said they had grave concerns about the crowded conditions in their emergency departments. Half of the physicians had personally encountered a patient who had suffered because of “boarding,” a practice in which admitted emergency patients wait for an inpatient bed in the hospital, often in hallways, while 200 of them said they knew of a patient who had died because of the practice, according to the results of a poll released by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) during the organization’s annual meeting in Seattle.’ (Respondents worked in community hospitals (64.6 percent), teaching hospitals (31.8 percent) and public hospitals (2 percent).

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