Boarding: Admitted, But Nobody's Watching | Episode 93

Lexcura Clinical Insights · Oct 27, 2026 · 15m

Episode three of the emergency department series is boarding, a word most people outside healthcare have never heard that describes one of the most dangerous situations in the hospital.

Michelle Carroll explains what boarding is: a patient who has been seen, worked up, given an admission order, and then kept in the ED, sometimes for days, because there's no bed upstairs. On paper, admitted and belonging to an inpatient physician who may never have seen them. Physically, in an ED bay or hallway, surrounded by ED nurses with a department full of new arrivals. The question that is the whole…