Session Detail

Community hospital ED spaces are facing new challenges related to treating patients with behavioral disorders. Suicides, suicide attempts and assault on caregivers has increased. New protocols related to the suicide risk assessment screening has resulted in a large percentage of the ED patient population requiring “sitters” outside ED rooms 24/ 7 for suicide prevention. The average length of stay for typical ED patients is measured in hours by ESI level. For behavioral patients sometimes the ALOS is measured in days, due to IP bed shortages and complexity of care to discharge. The resulting impact of this growth in behavioral patients and long ALOS is to bottleneck throughput for most ED’s. A more innovative approach was required to rethink the workflows for the ED. This work was programmed, planned and designed before the new FGI Guidelines 2022 update for behavioral ED’s. Many of the new FGI 2022 recommendations will be highlighted in this presentation.