Hospitals need to explore ways to be creative
I echo the editorial board’s assessment that there is no single answer to emergency department boarding issues facing hospitals across the state. Not only are these conditions distressing for patients and clinicians, but they are also key drivers of the financial challenges facing many health systems in Massachusetts and beyond. Overcoming these problems requires creativity, innovation, and perseverance from health care leaders, in partnership with policy makers. However, while these problems are complex and daunting, there are promising realworld solutions that hospitals and health systems can take to mitigate the impact of this crisis.
Your editorial focused on bottlenecks affecting patients who needed to be discharged to a rehabilitation center, skilled nursing facility, or home health service. We experienced the ED boarding crisis acutely at Lowell General Hospital as a result of an influx of behavioral health patients unable to see their providers for treatment due to COVID-19 restrictions and other factors. We moved swiftly to implement both short- and longer-term facilities improvements and recruited behavioral health nurses, mental health technicians, and psychiatric nurse practitioners to start treatment the moment patients arrive in the ED.
While these local changes have made a clear difference and have helped reduce our ED boarding by 70 percent compared with a year ago, more must be done. We must continue to look beyond our hospital walls and work with the Commonwealth to tackle these complex issues. Creative solutions to the significant challenges in transporting patients to inpatient behavioral health hospitals, state funding to support crisis stabilization and EmPATH units (emergency psychiatric assessment, treatment, and healing), and close community collaborations are critical to helping those who need us most.
There are promising realworld solutions that hospitals and health systems can take to mitigate the impact of this crisis.
AMY HOEY President Tufts Medicine Lowell General Hospital Lowell
The writer is a registered nurse.