STUDY OBJECTIVE: This is a pilot study designed to assess the feasibility of a point prevalence study to assess the degree of @entity3232 in hospital @entity341 ( @entity341 ). In addition, we sought to measure the degree of physical @entity3232 and personnel shortage in our sample. METHODS: A mail survey was sent to a random sample of 250 @entity341 chosen from a database compiled by the American College of Emergency Physicians of 5,064 @entity341 in the United States. In addition to demographic information, respondents were asked to count the @entity1 and staff in their @entity341 at 7 PM local time on Monday, March 12, 2001 (index time). RESULTS: The response rate was 36%. At the index time, there was an average of 1.1 @entity1 per treatment space, and 52% of @entity341 reported more than 1 @entity1 per treatment space. There was also evidence of personnel shortage, with a mean of 4.2 @entity1 per registered nurse and 49% of @entity341 having each registered nurse caring for more than 4 @entity1 . There was a mean of 9.7 @entity1 per physician. Sixty-eight percent of @entity341 had each physician caring for more than 6 @entity1 . There was @entity3232 present in all geographic areas and all hospital types (teaching-nonteaching status of the hospital). Consistent with the crowded conditions, 11% of institutions were on ambulance diversion and not accepting new acute @entity1 . Delays in transfer of admitted @entity1 out of the @entity2613 contributed to the physical @entity3232 . Twenty-two percent of @entity1 in the @entity2613 were already admitted and were awaiting transfer to an inpatient bed; 73% of @entity341 were boarding 2 or more inpatients. The amount of @entity3232 quantified by this point prevalence study was confirmed by the amount of @entity3232 reported for the previous week: 48% of @entity341 were boarding inpatients during the previous week for a mean of 8.9 hours, 4.2 days per week; 31% had been on diversion; 59% had been routinely using their halls for @entity1 ; 38% had been doubling their rooms; and 47% had been using nonclinical space for @entity1 care. CONCLUSION: Our low response rate limits this pilot study. Nonetheless, this study, as well as others, demonstrates that @entity341 throughout the United States are severely crowded. Such @entity3232 raises concerns about the ability of @entity341 to respond to mass casualty or volume surges.

Emergency department XXXX : a point in time.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['patients', 'patient'] @entity341 :: ('MESH:D004630', 'Disease') :: ['emergency departments', 'EDs'] @entity2613 :: ('MESH:C536181', 'Disease') :: ['ED'] @entity3232 :: ('MESH:D008310', 'Disease') :: ['crowding']
@entity3232 :: (MESH:D008310,Disease) :: ['crowding']
