BIDMC Emergency Medicine Researchers Contribute to National Study on Care for Boarding Patients

Researchers from the Department of Emergency Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) are among the authors of a new multicenter study published in JAMA examining an increasingly urgent challenge facing hospitals nationwide: the care of admitted patients who remain in the emergency department while awaiting an inpatient bed.

The JAMA research letter, “Time to Inpatient Management for Boarding Emergency Department Patients,” examines how quickly patients transition from emergency department care to management by inpatient clinical teams while they remain physically located in the ED. Emergency department boarding has become a widespread challenge across U.S. hospitals and has been associated with delays in care and adverse patient outcomes.

The study brings together investigators from leading academic medical centers across the country to characterize variation in these transitions and provide new data that can help hospitals identify opportunities to improve care for patients during prolonged boarding.

Adrian Haimovich, MD, PhD, is one of the primary authors and founding members of RESQUE-NET (Research in Emergency Systems and Quality Using EHRs Network). BIDMC investigators contributing to the study include Adrian D. Haimovich, MD, PhD; Larry A. Nathanson, MD; Evan L. Leventhal, MD, PhD, and Meaghan Cussen, EdD, all from the Department of Emergency Medicine.

The publication reflects BIDMC Emergency Medicine's continued commitment to advancing research that addresses critical challenges in emergency care delivery, hospital operations, and patient safety.

The study was published online in JAMA on August 17, 2026.

Read the study: Time to Inpatient Management for Boarding Emergency Department Patients – JAMA