Emergency Department Wait Times Vary by State, Study Finds

CAL/AAEM News Service calaaem_news at yahoo.com
Sun Jun 11 21:33:11 PDT 2006


Emergency Department Wait Times Vary by State, Study Finds

Source: California Healthline (http://www.californiahealthline.org)
Date: June 1, 2006
 

Visitors to U.S. hospital emergency departments wait an average of 222 minutes,
or 3.7 hours, before being seen by a provider, according to a new
state-by-state study released by Press Ganey Associates, USA Today reports. The
study, which examines wait times at EDs across the nation, is based on 1.5
million patient questionnaires filled out in 2005.

The study finds that EDs in Iowa and Nebraska had the shortest wait times, with
averages of 138.3 minutes and 146.1 minutes, respectively. EDs in Arizona and
Maryland had the worst wait times, at 297.3 minutes and 246.9 minutes,
respectively.

Press Ganey President Melvin Hall said Midwestern states often have shorter ED
wait times because of their lower occupancy rates. By contrast, metropolitan
hospitals often have longer ED wait times because many patients go there for
treatment of routine medical problems and are forced to wait longer while more
critically injured patients are treated.

According to USA Today, the study's findings are important because ED patient
satisfaction is based in large part on the amount of time spent waiting to be
seen. As a result, many hospitals are seeking to improve patient satisfaction
by promising to see patients quickly "as a marketing tool," USA Today reports.

"There is hardly a hospital in the country that is not in some way focused on
wait times in the emergency room," Hall said. Glenn Hamilton of Wright State
University added, "It's not just a satisfaction issue. It's a safety issue"
(Fuson, USA Today, 6/1). 


For more information, please visit: 
http://www.californiahealthline.org/index.cfm?Action=dspItem&itemID=121906 


Cyrus Shahpar & Brian Potts 
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/


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