Shorter Emergency Room Wait Times — Shouldn't it be about Better Care for Patients?
In the medical world time is unequivocally valuable as it can help save lives. Unfortunately, medical professionals constantly have to account for every minute of their time, including time spent with each of their patients. I believe a large portion of medical care rendered has become more about the bottom line than the quality of care given. In support of this notion, a recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune caught my eye. The basis of the article was about hospital wait times and the fact that hospitals all over the country are starting to push for shorter wait times in their emergency rooms. In fact, some hospitals such as St. Marks are promoting their short wait times to the public in ways like never before. These ways include giant billboards along the freeway, websites, twitter, and even text messages. It's a competitive strategy, but also a tool for bending the wait-time curve and, hopefully, improving patient care, says the clinical staff at St. Marks.
Hospitals participating in this push for shorter waiting times contend that the program will help educate patients and provide them a better overall experience. Hospitals feel that one way this can be achieved is by using emergency services in an "appropriate" manner. Essentially patients with less severe symptoms are not treated as immediate emergencies, to help reserve space for patients whose life maybe in danger.
According to the article, yet another measure of efficiency is an emergency room's length of stay, from triage to discharge, which MountainStar has also pledged to shorten, especially at peak times. Last year, Utah emergency departments showed unfavorable length of stays, with averages in excess of six hours, according to an industry report, Press Ganey's "ED Pulse."
I concur with the position of some emergency medicine doctors, in the belief that this is a potentially dangerous marketing gimmick by corporations, not medical professionals. It was quoted that the emergency medicine doctors' fear is that patients with serious emergencies will drive longer distances for care, mistakenly thinking they can get faster treatment. Conversely, in fact, under the rules of triage such patients are to be seen immediately at any E.R. I have even further fears that health care professionals will not be able to devote the appropriate time to their patients, or run the necessary tests to make a diagnosis, thereby leading to a great number of incorrect diagnosis, delay of diagnosis and a general failure to listen to patients.
Perhaps corporate leaders ought to leave the practice of medicine to the professionals and allow health care providers to determine the care and time they need to devote to each of their patients.
