From ACEP Now:
Transferring patients from one ED to another hospital is an established part of emergency medicine practice. Patients who need inpatient services do not match the index hospitals’ capabilities, or the patient requests such a transfer, or the hospital has no available inpatient space. The rate of transfers was stable for many years, typically around 2 percent.
A recent study from JAMA Network Open highlighted the issues of patient transfers, particularly for small rural hospitals. Their study was limited to 681 hospitals and characterized transfer patterns related to caseload-constrained hospitals. They reported concerns related to overcoming barriers to transferring patients in future surges.
In fact, that study underestimated the ongoing challenges affecting patient transfers in U.S. emergency departments. Transfer rates are up across all types of EDs. In the last couple of years, EDs have transferred 3.2 percent of patients—twice the rate in 2010.
The data additionally show the ongoing transfer rate is higher in small volume EDs (4.7 percent). ED transfer rates vary dramatically by cohorts, increasing by nearly a factor of three for hospital-based EDs with decreasing volume
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