ERs post wait times; critics question effect Sports Fitness Health

ERs post wait times; critics question effect

August 26, 2010, 7:42 pm

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Online, via text message or flashing on a billboard, some emergency rooms are advertising how long the dreaded wait for care will be, with estimates updated every few minutes. It’s a marketing move aimed at less urgent patients, not the true emergencies that automatically go to the front of the line anyway and shouldn’t waste precious minutes checking the wait.

“If you’re in a car accident, you’re not going to flip open your iPhone and see what the wait times are,” cautions Dr. Sandra Schneider, president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

The Detroit Medical Center is among the few major health systems in Metro Detroit to embrace the approach. The DMC began posting wait times at its five emergency departments on its website in March and has since expanded the updates to cell phones.

Patients can text a DMC number and receive a text message back with wait times at all five emergency rooms. The eight-hospital health system also launched its own iPhone application, allowing patients to not only check ER wait times but also locate DMC emergency departments on a map.

“We realize the number one satisfier (for patients) is they not experience avoidable delays,” said Dr. Suzanne White, emergency department chief at the DMC.

So far, the marketing effort has helped keep volumes “brisk” at DMC emergency rooms, White said. Other hospitals in the area have turned to fast-service guarantees in the past to lure more emergency patients. Oakwood Health in Dearborn was among the first to pioneer this approach in the late 1990s, guaranteeing it would see emergency room patients within 30 minutes of arrival.

St. Joseph Mercy Health System based in Ann Arbor later followed suit and so did the DMC, which launched its own 29-minute guarantee in 2004.

Some hospital administrators, however, say these ER marketing campaigns further contributed to the nation’s fast-rising health care tab.

They encourage some people to use the emergency room when a less expensive option would be more appropriate, such as a doctor’s office or urgent care center, said Bob Hoban, chief strategy officer at St. John Providence Health in Warren.

“If someone has time to search the Internet for wait times, they may not be in an emergency situation,” Hoban said.

Despite that fledgling trend, ERs are getting busier, forcing them to try innovative tactics to cut delays such as stationing doctors at the front door to get a jump-start on certain patients.

ER visits hit a high of more than 123 million in 2008, up from 117 million a year earlier, says preliminary data released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A disturbing report last year from Congress’ investigative arm found too often, patients who should have been seen immediately waited nearly a half-hour. Add in tests and treatment, and a trip to the ER can easily last three or four hours.

And in 2012, hospitals are to begin reporting to Medicare how fast their ERs move certain patients through, a first step at increasing quality of care across the board.

“The longer people stay in the emergency department, the more likely they’re going to have complications, deaths.

If they’re elderly, they’re more likely to end up in a nursing home,” says Dr. Nick Jouriles, emergency medicine chief at Akron General Hospital in Ohio, among the hospitals that post estimated wait times.

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