ER waiting time nears an hour

[cougarnurse]

Thought this would be of interest: Average ER waiting time nears 1 hour, CDC says - Yahoo! News

ATLANTA - The average time that hospital emergency rooms patients wait to see a doctor has grown from about 38 minutes to almost an hour over the past decade, according to new federal statistics released Wednesday.

The increase is due to supply and demand, said Dr. Stephen Pitts, the lead author of the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"There are more people arriving at the ERs. And there are fewer ERs," said Pitts, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Atlanta's Emory University.

Overall, about 119 million visits were made to emergency rooms in 2006, up from 90 million in 1996 — a 32 percent increase.

Meanwhile, the number of hospital emergency departments dropped to fewer than 4,600, from nearly 4,900, according to American Hospital Association statistics.

Another reason for crowding is patients who are admitted to the hospital end up waiting in the ER because of the limited number of hospital beds, Pitts added.

The amount of time a patient waited before seeing a physician in an ER has been rising steadily, from 38 minutes in 1997, to 47 minutes in 2004, to 56 minutes in 2006.

Pitts added that 56 minutes may be the average, but it's not typical: The average was skewed to nearly an hour because of some very long waits.
"Half of people had waiting times of 31 minutes or less," Pitts noted.
Researchers also found that there has not been any recent increases in the number of patients arriving by ambulance, or in the number of cases considered to be true emergencies.

Black patients visited emergency departments at twice the rate as whites in 2006. Among age groups, the highest visitation rates were for infants and elderly people aged 75 and older.

About 40 percent of ER patients had private insurance, about 25 percent were covered by state programs for children and about 17 percent were covered by Medicare, the report found. About 17 percent were uninsured.
Some more findings: Summer and winter were the busiest times in ERs. And half of hospital admissions in 2006 came through emergency departments, up from 36 percent in 1996.

"The ER has become the front door to the hospital," said Pitts, a fellow at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
The results are based on a national survey of 362 hospital emergency departments.

[AmandaWIRN]

An hour wait time is NOTHING! I have worked at ER's where the wait time is 3, 4, 5 hours, sometimes more..... Some larger ER's have wait times that exceed 8 hours.

[cougarnurse]

I can believe the wait, 'Manda. I got lucky back in May..... 'no waiting' the first trip to the one local ER, and surprisingly, that was on a Friday. 2nd time.....I had a wait, and that was on a Monday afternoon.

It seems like weekends tend to be busiest, though. The club I belong to is a bit south of that particular hospital, and sirens are heard quite a bit.

[amberdouglas]

There is a hospital in Memphis, Methodist South, where they promise that from the time you walk in the door till the time you see a MD will not be more than 30 min. or the ceo will come personally apologize to you and the hospital will buy you lunch. works really well too.

[cougarnurse]

Wonder how the Press Gainey's are.....

[SoldierNurse]

Originally Posted by AmandaWIRN

An hour wait time is NOTHING! I have worked at ER's where the wait time is 3, 4, 5 hours, sometimes more..... Some larger ER's have wait times that exceed 8 hours.

[Nursescircuit]

I guess I've been lucky most of the time I visit the ER as I did not have to wait that long before being seen.

NurseBelle
Nursescircuit.com
the cool new networking site for nurses

[Christof60]

Funny that in that big ol' study they dont mention that ER's have become the "Clinic of Choice" for people now.. "My baby threw up once", or "He just wont quit crying", etc..
They have got to get a handle on this, but alas, they will just come up with more "Standards of Care" to speed up the process, instead of maybe educating people on proper use of EMS and ER?
I really think that people on Medicare/Medicaid should have some kind of co-pay for ER visits.. Even $5 or $10.. If they can afford cell phones, cigarettes, etc., they can afford that kind of co-pay (mine with insurance is $250 deductable, $100 up front for ER, then 20% of bill). Maybe it would cut down on some of the visits, and thus the waiting time for people who really need to be in ER...

[SoldierNurse]

Originally Posted by Christof60

Funny that in that big ol' study they dont mention that ER's have become the "Clinic of Choice" for people now.. "My baby threw up once", or "He just wont quit crying", etc..
They have got to get a handle on this, but alas, they will just come up with more "Standards of Care" to speed up the process, instead of maybe educating people on proper use of EMS and ER?
I really think that people on Medicare/Medicaid should have some kind of co-pay for ER visits.. Even $5 or $10.. If they can afford cell phones, cigarettes, etc., they can afford that kind of co-pay (mine with insurance is $250 deductable, $100 up front for ER, then 20% of bill). Maybe it would cut down on some of the visits, and thus the waiting time for people who really need to be in ER...

I remember [civilian sector] the Minor Emergency Clinics seemed to help alleviate some of the bumps & sniffle cases. However, they have pretty much gone by the wayside.

[Christof60]

Originally Posted by SoldierNurse

I remember [civilian sector] the Minor Emergency Clinics seemed to help alleviate some of the bumps & sniffle cases. However, they have pretty much gone by the wayside.

So true, and they were a godsend.... BUT... The ones that could afford to stay open charged up front, and in competing with ER's where EMTALA does not allow the Hospitals to do the same thing, they just cannot draw much business..