BOSTON – According to a study conducted by Dr. Andrew Wilper at the Harvard Medical School, the waiting time for patients in a hospital emergency room has increased 36 percent, with an average wait time of 30 minutes per patient. For as many as one-quarter of heart attack patients, the wait time is 50 minutes or longer.
In the Jan. 15 online issue of Health Affairs, Wilper said the increase of ER wait times is a result of more patients visiting emergency rooms as ERs are shutting down. He added that patients waiting in the ER for six or 12 hours reflect that there are not enough resources available, such as a lack of bed space and lack of specialists to treat patients.
During the study, Wilper and his team looked at 92,173 ER visits from 1997 through 2004. The team discovered that almost 18,000 patients were in need of immediate care at the time of initial assessment and 987 had a diagnosed heart attack.
Using that sample, researchers applied the information to the U.S. population for the study. Out of 332 million adult ER visits, 67 million patients needed immediate care and 3.7 million were heart attack sufferers. In 1994, there were 93.4 million emergency room visits. That number increased to 110.2 million in 1997, according to the study. During the same time frame, the number of ERs functioning for 24 hours dropped 12 percent.
The wait to see an ER physician also increased. In 2004, the average wait was 30 minutes, as opposed to 1997 where the wait was 22 minutes. Each year, researchers said, there was a 4.1 percent increase in wait time.
Heart attack patients suffered the greatest wait time increase. According to the study, the average wait time for heart attack victims had been eight minutes. That number increased to 20 minutes, a 150 percent increase.
For those who were evaluated as needing immediate assistance, there was a 3.6 percent increase. In 1997, patients waited 10 minutes to see a physician; however, in 2004, the number grew to 14 minutes.
Wilper offered some suggestions to decrease wait time for patients. He said there needs to be an expansion of insurance coverage, an expansion of primary care and modified management of inpatient and elective surgeries due to so many ERs being shut down might assist in relieving the excess of people in the emergency room.
Dr. Art Kellermann, a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians, believes the problem doesn’t just apply to patients without insurance, adding that those with insurance often wait in emergency rooms. Rather, he said, the problems are a lack of open space and lack of resources. He adds that the ER healthcare team wastes valuable time when moving around equipment and patients without open space.
According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, long waits for service is one factor that may lead to violence in healthcare settings. To learn more on how to handle such situations, please read Responding to Abusive Patient Behavior (Part I of III): 3 Pitfalls to Avoid When Training Staff, Responding to Abusive Patient Behavior (Part II of III): 10 Ways to Defuse Incidents and Responding to Abusive Patient Behavior (Part III of III): Reducing the Risks of Restraints.
