Longer ED Boarding, Greater Deterioration Risk?

Emergency department (ED) boarding — the term for patients remaining in the ED after decisions to admit — has become the rule rather than the exception, but its effects remain underappreciated (Figure 1). In this five-hospital retrospective analysis, researchers tracked early clinical deterioration — defined as escalation from regular floor to intermediate or ICU level of care within 48 hours after the admission order — in 173,000 adults who boarded for 4 to 48 hours.