the ED waiting room

introduction

in an ideal world, the ED wait room would be empty or just have new arrivals
unfortunately, patients often experience much longer waits, to the extent that “waiting room medicine” is now becoming almost mandatory in many EDs
in addition, access block issues and high levels of ambulance presentations has resulted in increasing pressure to offload these patients to the wait room

patients requiring high priority emergency care
- eg. requiring cardiac monitoring , resuscitation, iv analgesia, imminent labour, dislocation major joints, etc
high infection risk who should be placed in a negative pressure room upon arrival
- eg. suspected measles
unaccompanied patients who are likely not to be competent and thus at risk of wandering or being assaulted
- minors
- likely dementia, delirium or psychosis
- intellectually disabled patients
patients at risk of absconding who are at high risk to themselves or others
- mod-high suicidality risk
patients at high risk of injuring others or themselves
- most section 351 patients
- agitation / aggression