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When that option wasn’t available, emergency services filled the void. a recent study Out of 88 pediatric hospitals nationwide, 87 were found to regularly inpatient overnight children and adolescents in the emergency department. On average, there were four inpatients per day with an average stay of 48 hours in any hospital.
D., a pediatrician at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and lead author of the study. “There is a pediatric mental health inpatient pandemic,” said JoAnna K. Leyenaar. In an interview, she estimated, based on her research and other data, that at least 1,000 teenagers, and perhaps as many as 5,000, fly to the country’s 4,000 emergency rooms each night.
Dr. “We have a national crisis,” Leyenaar said.
This trend runs counter to best practices recommended by the Joint Commission, a nonprofit organization that helps determine national health policy. According to the standard, adolescents who come to the emergency department for mental health reasons should not stay there for more than four hours, as a prolonged stay may compromise patient safety, delay treatment, and divert resources from other emergencies.
Still, in 2021, the average adolescent hospitalized in the emergency room at Boston Children’s Hospital spent nine days waiting for a bed, up from three and a half days in 2019; In 2021, the average wait time was eight days at Colorado Children’s Hospital in Aurora and six days at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford.
Emergency boarding also increased in small, rural hospitals, “no pediatric or mental health condition” experts,” said Dr. Christian Pulcini. studied trend in the state. “There is a clear conclusion,” he told the Vermont legislature recently. The emergency room is not a suitable environment for children to receive comprehensive, acute mental health services.”
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