> ## Content Index > See [/llms.txt](/llms.txt) for an index of available Markdown resources. # Why am I being treated in the hallway? - URL: https://emergencyroomexplained.com/articles/why-am-i-being-treated-in-the-hallway/ - Description: Why are patients treated in ER hallways? Learn why rooms may stay open, how hallway patients are monitored, and what HIPAA means for privacy. Sometimes the ER has more patients who need care than it has rooms. Here’s why you may be treated in a hallway, and what that means for your care, monitoring, and privacy. ![A patient sitting in a recliner in a hallway with IV fluids going into his arm.](https://emergencyroomexplained.com/media/posts/23/why-am-i-being-treated-in-the-hallway.png) You hear your name called and you’re brought back to the emergency department. *Wow,* you think, *it’s only been a few minutes since I was triaged. Last time I waited hours.* “Here we are,” the triage nurse says. “Hallway G.” You look over and see a big “G” on the wall and, below it, what appears to be a recliner. A curtain on wheels seems to be the only thing offering any privacy. *A hallway chair? Why am I out here? Didn’t we just pass an empty room? How is this even appropriate? What if I need something?* ## Why am I in the hallway? Emergency departments have a finite number of treatment rooms, and sometimes there are more patients needing care than there are rooms available. Some patients can be evaluated and treated without occupying a conventional room for the entire visit. Using hallway stretchers and chairs can allow care to start or continue instead of leaving every patient without a room untreated in the waiting room. Hallway spaces vary enormously between hospitals. Some are improvised when needed. Others are established care spaces with designated stretchers or chairs, equipment, portable monitors, and rolling privacy curtains. Being placed in the hallway doesn’t necessarily mean the ED thinks nothing is wrong with you. It often means that, at that moment, your care can be provided there while a traditional treatment room is needed for someone else. ## If there’s an open room, can’t I have it? This is where hallway care can become especially frustrating. You may be sitting in the hall while looking directly at an empty room. But an empty room isn’t necessarily an available room. One visible empty room may be the last room of its type. It may need to remain available for a critically ill patient as long as other treatment spaces can be used safely. Or the room you’re seeing may be a specialized space, such as a trauma or resuscitation room, equipped for higher-acuity care that cannot easily be delivered elsewhere. Other rooms may be needed for cardiac monitoring, procedures, infectious isolation, behavioral-health safety, or other specific needs. A room may also be temporarily unavailable because it needs specialized cleaning, lacks the staff needed to use it, or is being prepared for a patient who requires what that room can provide. A relatively stable patient whose current needs can be met in the hallway may therefore remain there so that a fully equipped room is available for someone who cannot reasonably be treated anywhere else. The question isn’t simply: *Who would be more comfortable in the room? *It’s: *Who actually needs what that room can provide?* ### I was in a room. Why did they move me into the hallway? Sometimes you start out in a room, only to have someone come in later and say they need to move you to the hallway. Being moved doesn’t usually mean your care has ended. It may mean that your condition and treatment have reached a point where the room itself is no longer essential, while another patient now needs that room for care that cannot reasonably happen in the hallway. Boarding can contribute as well. Admitted patients may remain in ED rooms while waiting for inpatient beds, leaving fewer traditional treatment spaces for newly arriving emergencies. Your location can change during an ED visit because your medical needs, and the needs of everyone else in the department, change over time. ## How am I being monitored? “Monitoring” does not always mean being attached continuously to a heart monitor. Depending on why you’re in the ED, monitoring may include repeat vital signs, nursing reassessments, repeat examinations, watching laboratory and imaging results, or seeing how you respond to medication or treatment. Some departments also have portable equipment that allows cardiac rhythm, oxygen level, blood pressure, or other measurements to be monitored outside a traditional room. Being in the hallway does not mean you’ve disappeared from the care system. At the same time, some patients need continuous monitoring, equipment, or other resources that cannot reasonably be provided in a particular hallway space. If your needs change, your location may need to change with them. ## Where’s my call bell? One of the practical disadvantages of hallway care is that you may not have the built-in call system typically found in a treatment room. Departments handle this differently. If no one has told you how to get staff attention, ask. Do not wait quietly for the next scheduled check if something important changes. If you develop worsening chest pain, trouble breathing, feel faint, have a reaction to a medication, or experience another significant change, tell a nurse or another staff member. ## What if my condition gets worse? Conditions evolve in the emergency department. Maybe you’ve already received treatment and staff are waiting to see whether it works. Maybe you’ve been examined and the plan is to observe you for a while. New symptoms, changes in vital signs, test results, or visible worsening can change both your priority and where you need to be cared for. A patient in the hallway can be moved into a treatment room, monitored area, resuscitation room, or another more appropriate space if the situation changes. If something changes, say so. Staff can reassess you, but they cannot detect every new symptom from across the hallway. ## Doesn’t hallway care violate HIPAA? Being treated in a hallway is not automatically a HIPAA violation. The HIPAA Privacy Rule recognizes that healthcare sometimes involves conversations that may be overheard despite reasonable precautions. Hospitals and their staff are still expected to use reasonable safeguards to protect your medical information, but HIPAA does not require every conversation or examination to occur in a completely private room. That may be why the rolling curtain is pulled around you for an examination, why your nurse or clinician lowers their voice while speaking with you, or why a particularly sensitive conversation is moved somewhere more private when feasible. A rolling curtain can provide useful visual privacy. Obviously, it can’t make a hallway soundproof. ## I feel like I have no privacy. What can I do? You can say so. If you’re uncomfortable discussing something sensitive in the hallway, it’s reasonable to ask whether that part of the conversation or examination can take place somewhere more private. If you weren’t given a rolling curtain or screen, you can ask whether one is available. And just as you could in a regular room, you can ask family or friends to step away. Staff may not be able to provide a private space immediately. That doesn’t make requesting privacy unreasonable. “HIPAA-compliant” and “comfortable or private” are not the same question. ## I was in a hallway chair. Why was I moved back to the waiting room when my IV medications finished? In some emergency departments, [parts of a patient’s care take place from the waiting room](https://emergencyroomexplained.com/articles/still-in-the-waiting-room-doesnt-mean-still-waiting-for-care/) or another shared care area. You might be evaluated in one room, moved to a hallway chair for IV fluids or medication, and then return to the waiting room while waiting for laboratory or imaging results or reassessment by a clinician. That doesn’t necessarily mean your care is finished or that you’ve been discharged. If you’re unsure what you’re waiting for or what happens next, ask a staff member. ## Is hallway care sanitary? Hallway chairs, stretchers, and reusable equipment are generally the same types used elsewhere in the emergency department. They still need to be appropriately cleaned between patients, and the usual infection-control precautions still apply regardless of where care is provided. Hallways do have more traffic and less separation from other people than private rooms. Some infections also require specific precautions that affect where a patient should be placed. If you’re asked to sit in a chair or lie on a stretcher that looks as though it wasn’t cleaned after the previous patient, it is reasonable to ask about it. Sometimes what looks dirty is a permanent stain, and the person you’re asking may know that the chair was just cleaned. I’ve personally cleaned a chair again when a patient asked and I couldn’t give a definite answer. It’s a reasonable thing to want to know. ## Does being in the hallway mean I’m not very sick? Not necessarily. Patients placed in hallways are often stable enough at that moment that they do not require resources available only in a conventional treatment room. But “stable enough for the hallway” does not mean “nothing is wrong.” Crowding can also create situations in which a patient whose needs would ordinarily put them in a room has to begin care somewhere else while staff work to create an appropriate space. Hallway placement therefore reflects two things at once: what you need medically and what treatment spaces the emergency department has available at that moment. ## Hallway care is a compromise Hallway care is not ideal. It has real disadvantages: less privacy, more noise, less comfort, fewer built-in resources, and less dignity than most patients, or clinicians, would prefer. But sometimes an emergency department has more patients who need active care than it has traditional treatment rooms. In those circumstances, additional treatment spaces can allow evaluation and treatment to begin or continue rather than requiring every patient without a room to remain untreated in the waiting room. Where you are physically located in an emergency department is not always a good measure of how much care is happening, or how seriously your condition is being taken. ## Further reading - [Why Do I Have To Wait in Emergency Departments?](https://www.acep.org/federal-advocacy/access-to-emergency-medicine/why-do-i-have-to-wait-in-emergency-departments) — American College of Emergency Physicians - [Does the HIPAA Privacy Rule require hospitals and doctors’ offices to provide private rooms and soundproof walls?](https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/faq/197/must-facilities-have-private-or-soundproof-rooms/index.html) — U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - [I’ve been admitted. Why am I still in the ER?](https://emergencyroomexplained.com/articles/why-am-i-still-in-the-er/) — Emergency Room Explained ## References - Richards JR, Derlet RW. [Emergency Department Hallway Care From the Millennium to the Pandemic: A Clear and Present Danger](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2022.07.011). The Journal of Emergency Medicine. 2022;63(4):565–568. - Rixe JA, Liu JH, Breaud HA, Nelson KP, Mitchell PM, Feldman JA. [Is hallway care dangerous? An observational study](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajem.2018.04.003). The American Journal of Emergency Medicine. 2018;36(8):1451–1454. - Barlas D, Sama AE, Ward MF, Lesser ML. [Comparison of the auditory and visual privacy of emergency department treatment areas with curtains versus those with solid walls](https://doi.org/10.1067/mem.2001.115441). Annals of Emergency Medicine. 2001;38(2):135–139. - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. [Incidental Uses and Disclosures](https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance/incidental-uses-and-disclosures/index.html). Content last reviewed July 26, 2013. - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [CDC’s Core Infection Prevention and Control Practices for Safe Healthcare Delivery in All Settings](https://www.cdc.gov/infection-control/hcp/core-practices/index.html). Updated April 12, 2024.