Seattle hospitals adopt no-diversion policy

Hospitals in King County, Washington will no longer divert critically ill patients to other facilities when their emergency rooms are crowded. Instead, hospitals in the area have agreed to treat and stabilize patients in critical condition and then transfer patients to neighboring facilities later. Because many hospitals in the area were on "divert status" 20 to 25 percent of the time, many critically-ill patients found themselves stuck in limbo at a moment when their lives were in grave danger. Chris Martin, the chairwoman of the group that brokered the deal, comments, "We all agreed that philosophically, it was not OK, and ethically, it wasn't OK. We're going to take the word 'divert' totally out of our vocabulary."

- see this article from the Seattle Post Intelligencer

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