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Midafternoon, one of the three intensive care patients assigned to nurse Jim Hayes was doing well enough that they were ready to transfer to a room with a lower level of care. But that did not mean there would be much time with the other two patients.
“Within another hour and a half or so, I’ll get an admission,” Hayes said. “There are five people in the ER right now who are waiting to come up here, and there are no beds.”
This moment, he said Thursday afternoon, can be the most dangerous.
His full attention would soon be required to admit his next patient, making sure that intravenous lines, electronic monitors, perhaps even a breathing machine called a ventilator, were all functioning toward the goal of stabilizing a patient’s deteriorating medical condition. His other two patients one more than state nursing ratios usually allow would temporarily get less of his immediate attention.