Desperate times call for mild answers, right? That massive tax credit is going to solve all of our health care problems including overcrowding in ERs.
"They sent me up here to make room for other emergency patients," Gray, 78, said last week from his bed in the hall of a New York area hospital. "This is the way things are in hospitals."
It may not sound like ideal health care, but hospital officials nationwide are being urged to consider hallway medicine as a way to ease emergency department crowding, and some are trying it.
Leading the way is Stony Brook University Medical Center at Stony Brook, N.Y., where a study found that no harm was caused by moving emergency room patients to upper-floor hallways when they were ready for admission.
The study's lead author says all hospitals should look at the program's success.
"This is yet another battle cry for hospitals to get off their duffs and stop stacking people knee deep in the emergency department," said Dr. Peter Viccellio, who is clinical director of the hospital's emergency department.
