As patient volumes in hospital emergency departments (EDs) are going up, waiting times to see an ED physician are getting longer, particularly for heart attack patients and those in need of the most immediate attention, according to a study by Harvard Medical School researchers at the Cambridge Health Alliance published today as a Health Affairs web exclusive.
The researchers found that the median ED wait time went up from 22 minutes in 1997 to 30 minutes in 2004, a 36 percent increase. For patients diagnosed in the ED with acute myocardial infarction, the median wait time increased a steep 150 percent, from 8 minutes in 1997 to 20 minutes in 2004. And for those identified in ED triage as needing attention “emergently,” wait times increased from 10 minutes in 1997 to 14 minutes in 2004, an increase of 40 percent.
The researchers say that the most important factor in increasing ED wait times is likely the greater crowding that has resulted from ED closures combined with an increase in ED visits: Between 1994 and 2004, the number of annual ED visits increased from 93.4 million to 110.2 million, while the number of EDs fell 12.4 percent. Read the abstract.
