Emergency Room wait time?

[URY914]

We have billboards all over the place that show a digital clock and the hospital saying "The waiting time in our ER is 3:20 minutes/seconds" And the time is supposed to be updated through out the day depending on how busy they are. I'm sure every major city has the same thing.

I gotta call BULL**** on this. I don't believe there is anyone sitting at the hospital updating these billboards or that they are somehow automatically updated via a data line to the hospital.

And when was the last time you were speeding to the hospital and decided on the hospital you were headed to because of a billboard?

OK, I'm glad to get that off my chest! Thank you.

[porsche4life]

Hey! My company makes a good deal of money selling hospitals those signs. They are actually connected to the internet and setup to pull their information from an RSS feed.

As far as if that makes up anyones mind? I have no clue. I generally pick an ER based on where the nearest one is...

[recycled sixtie]

Interesting. Our local hospital located not in a great area has a system like this.
You go in and you are assessed on how sick you are. If you are a drug addict and need a fix then you are low priority. It's a number system. If you are having a heart attack then you would be high priority. Makes sense to me....

[Rick V]

Originally Posted by recycled sixtie

If you are a drug addict and need a fix then you are low priority.

You should be in rehab or jail.

[krystar]

typical ER procedure to treat most important cases first. if you're not going to literally die in the next 5 minutes, it's back of the line.

puking, screaming pain, uncontrollable #1/#2, and complaining do not get you to the front of the line.

get front of the line: yer bleeding on the floor, you have a foreign object stuck thru your body, you collapse unconscious on the floor in front of the nurse, yer face is blue from asphyxiation, yer in labor...what else

[Zeke]

The ER is bib business. They have to be there, so why not advertise? We have one local hospital that advertises that they will see you by appt in the ER. I don't get that at all. What kind of emergency can wait until this afternoon?

It's not really an ER then, is it? What it is is a place where they can bill you $400 for walking in the door. Anyone dumb enough to make an appt to be seen at that rate deserves it. I think my doc in the box charges about $160 cash no insurance. I pay 35 and they get another 60 from BC.

[Rick Lee]

There is a website for local ER wait times. So it's probably not much of a stretch to put it on a billboard. When we were going to go there, I found the wait time online and decided to look a little harder for an urgent care place that was open.

[rusnak]

I would not at all be surprised if a lot of people died in the ER waiting room or in the ER hallway on a gurney waiting for treatment.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Zeke

The ER is bib business. They have to be there, so why not advertise? We have one local hospital that advertises that they will see you by appt in the ER. I don't get that at all. What kind of emergency can wait until this afternoon?

It's not really an ER then, is it?.....

Well if it's 3 AM in the morning on the weekend and your regular Dr is not available and you don't live in an area that has 24/7 Urgent Care facilities then the ER is your only option.

If you are not dying but it can't wait till Monday then I could see making an appt at an ER.

Would you rather sit in a ****ty waiting room for a couple of hours being miserable or at home?

[wdfifteen]

Never been to a first come, first served ER. They all do triage as far as I know. But I can see the value of letting folks know what the "average" wait time is. Some of the folks I've seen in ERs are just lazy, ignorant, or having drug problems. Maybe what they're complaining of isn't worth the wait and the ER won't have to deal with them at all.

[Scott R]

Easy to write an algorithm that reads the check in and check out time of a patient. You just then need to dump that info via XML to a site that counts that, or any other variable you use to measure patient wait times.

[dad911]

I was driving near a hospital, thought I was having a heart attack, and drove myself into the ER..... chest pains, one side numb.... told them I was having a heart attack... took 45 minutes before I saw anyone, they put me in a room alone.

If there was a sign, I'd have kept driving....

[URY914]

^^ Don't forget to drive thru McDonald's on the way. Hospital food sucks.

[glewis80SC]

Was it?

Originally Posted by dad911

I was driving near a hospital, thought I was having a heart attack, and drove myself into the ER..... chest pains, one side numb.... told them I was having a heart attack... took 45 minutes before I saw anyone, they put me in a room alone.

If there was a sign, I'd have kept driving....

[Evans, Marv]

My only experience with an ER was a sick joke. Woke up at 2AM realizing I was most likely passing a kidney stone. Drove myself to the Kaiser ER at their main hospital - a 30 minute trip. Checked in before 3AM and wasn't taken in until 5:30. What made it worse was that I was the only one in the ER most of the time. ER must not mean ER there. Oh, and it was a kidney stone.

[jyl]

I drove myself to ER at 3 am, they immediately got me into a bed with lots of cardiac monitors and doctors and nurses tending to me, after 45 min they figured out it was a gallstone and !poof! everyone lost interest and left to go tend to the actual critical cases - kind of funny really. I was feeling better by then so I didn't mind.

[petrolhead611]

The waiting time in UK ER's is in my experience very long and you have to sit alongside all the drunks and drug addicts. Friday & Saturday nights are the worst time to visit . At least we don't have to get out our creditcards, and hopefully don't have to see people with gunshot wounds

[biosurfer1]

I used to work at a hospital stockign inventory and had to go through the ER most nights. It always amazed me how busy it was everyday except major holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. I guess people take the day off from having emergencies those days

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Evans, Marv

My only experience with an ER was a sick joke. Woke up at 2AM realizing I was most likely passing a kidney stone. Drove myself to the Kaiser ER at their main hospital - a 30 minute trip. Checked in before 3AM and wasn't taken in until 5:30. What made it worse was that I was the only one in the ER most of the time. ER must not mean ER there. Oh, and it was a kidney stone.

But, but - our free market health care system is the best health care system money can buy! It is capitalist based and therefor efficient and effective. Only in socialist countries do you have to wait to have emergencies tended to. You must be mistaken Marv.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by petrolhead611

The waiting time in UK ER's is in my experience very long and you have to sit alongside all the drunks and drug addicts. Friday & Saturday nights are the worst time to visit . At least we don't have to get out our creditcards, and hopefully don't have to see people with gunshot wounds

You could say that about every US emergency room I've ever been in. It mirrors exactly my experiences, and with two elderly parents to care for and a chronically ill wife I've been in a LOT of ERs.