ER waits are up.

On Tuesday The Washington Post published an article about the growing wait time in our ERs. This one hit home for me as I waited in the ER with a family member for two and a half hours last week with what were seemingly serious symptoms. We went through triage and were asked to take a seat, so we did and we waited and waited and waited. Within 2 minutes of actually seeing a physician, we were informed that the situation was potentially extremely dangerous and my family member was whisked away for a battery of tests. Ultimately, the physician ruled out anything serious, but the tests were required to make that assessment.

My observation in our case was that the ER at this hospital just does not have enough beds to accommodate the local population, which has rapidly increased over the last 20 years. Once we got in there were plenty of physician, nurses and other staff to give each patient plenty of face time, in fact, I observed a fair amount of idle time for most of the staff during the hours we waited for tests and test results.

As our population grows, it seems evident that facilities need to be updated and expanded to keep up with demand along with the need for more healthcare professionals.\

A link to the full WP story is below:

-WJ

Emergency room waits are longer, study finds