Addressing Boarding and Crowding in the Emergency Department

This bill aims to make emergency care work better and faster. It lets existing public health data grants pay for real-time, statewide systems that track hospital bed space and how it affects ER wait times, ER boarding, and how long EMS crews wait to hand off patients. It also allows a public dashboard to share this information while protecting privacy. It tells Medicare’s innovation center to test research-based ways to improve emergency care for older adults and for people in a mental health crisis, such as better staffing and training, changes to ER spaces, geriatric-focused policies, dedicated ER units for psychiatric emergencies, and smoother transfers to nursing homes and other care facilities with two-way sharing of medical information.

A federal study will set best practices for these hospital capacity tracking systems. It must look at ERs, adult and pediatric ICUs, inpatient psychiatric services, and skilled nursing facilities, and make sure the systems connect directly with hospital electronic records. The study must also measure how these systems affect ER boarding, treatment and discharge wait times, and EMS offload times, and report back to Congress within one year of the law taking effect.

Key points

• Who is affected: hospital systems and ERs, EMS personnel, older adults, people in psychiatric crisis, and post-acute facilities like skilled nursing and assisted living; patients and families benefit from clearer information about capacity via a public dashboard.
• What changes: grants can fund real-time bed tracking and a public dashboard; new pilot efforts to improve ER care for older adults and psychiatric emergencies; better coordination and transfers with post-acute care facilities.
• When: the study’s report is due within one year after enactment.