Patient safety and quality outcomes for ED patients admitted to alternative care area inpatient beds.

BACKGROUND: Inpatient hallway beds are one solution to mitigate emergency department (ED) crowding due to boarding of admitted patients. Alternative Care Areas (AltCA) beds are located in inpatient hallways, cardiac catheterization lab, and endoscopy. We examined whether AltCA beds were associated with increased risk of patient safety and quality outcomes: transfer to Intensive Care Unit (ICU), mortality, hospital-acquired infections (HAI), falls, and 72-hour hospital readmission.

METHODS: Retrospective cohort study of patients age >18 years admitted from the ED to non-ICU beds at an urban, academic hospital. AltCA bed exclusion criteria: dementia, frequent respiratory interventions, contact or airborne isolation, psychiatric admission, and inability to ambulate. The study periods were: pre-intervention 9/1/2014-3/31/2015, transition 9/1/2015-3/31/2016, and post-intervention 9/1/2016-3/31/2017. Data analysis used unadjusted and multivariable analyses which controlled for age, sex, race, ethnicity, insurance, ED triage Emergency Service Index (ESI) level, and telemetry order.

RESULTS: The study included 16,801 patients, with 622 (3.7%) patients in AltCA beds. AltCA beds had younger patients than standard inpatient beds, 57.7 years and 61.7 years; fewer telemetry order, 48.4% and 59.3%; and fewer ESI level 2, 16.1% and 26.2%. AltCA beds had shorter hospital LOS than standard inpatient beds, 2.7 days and 3.4 days. AltCA beds had decreased risk of transfer to ICU -10.6 (95%CI: -18.3, -2.8) and HAI -13.4 (95%CI: -20.3, -6.5) compared to standard inpatient beds.

CONCLUSION: Patients in AltCA beds did not have increased risk of patient safety and quality outcomes but rather decreased risk of transfer to ICU and HAI than standard inpatient beds.