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View Full Version : ER waits dangerously long in U.S.: study



LiberalNation
01-15-2008, 02:58 PM
Nah, anyone whose spent 4 hours waiting while being ignored in the er would never have guessed that. Doctors offices aren't open in the middle of the night, holidays, ect.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/hospitals_emergency_usa_dc;_ylt=All_BGf5s5GmkeH5ON PCY5IDW7oF

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Patients seeking urgent care in U.S. emergency rooms are waiting longer than in the 1990s, especially people with heart attacks, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

They found a quarter of heart attack victims waited 50 minutes or more before seeing a doctor in 2004. Waits for all types of emergency department visits became 36 percent longer between 1997 and 2004, the team at Harvard Medical School reported.

Especially unsettling, people who had seen a triage nurse and been designated as needing immediate attention waited 40 percent longer -- from an average of 10 minutes in 1997 to an average 14 minutes in 2004, the researchers report in the journal Health Affairs.

Heart attack patients waited eight minutes in 1997 but 20 minutes in 2004, Dr. Andrew Wilper and colleagues found.

"If a loved one has a heart attack, it doesn't matter whether he is well insured. He still has a one-in-four chance of waiting over 50 minutes, because of ED (emergency department) overcrowding, and this wait will only increase," Dr. Robert Lowe, an emergency medicine expert at Oregon Health and Science University who did not work on the study, said in a statement.

Wilper's team used U.S. Census survey and National Center for Health Statistics data for their study, which covered more than 92,000 emergency department visits.

They used other surveys to calculate that the number of emergency room visits rose from 93.4 million in 1994 to 110.2 million in 2004.

During the same time, 12 percent fewer hospitals operated emergency rooms, according to the American Hospital Association.

"EDs close because, in our current payment system, emergency patients are money-losers for hospitals," Wilper said in a statement.

manu1959
01-15-2008, 03:08 PM
there is a trick to being seen quick......hyper ventilate to get your blood pressure up and heart rate up....and when they ask about pain and anxiety on a scale of 1-10 say 12.....and then start to panic......

Trigg
01-15-2008, 03:11 PM
Nah, anyone whose spent 4 hours waiting while being ignored in the er would never have guessed that. Doctors offices aren't open in the middle of the night, holidays, ect.

.


A huge problem with the current ER situation are dipshit parents who treat the ER as their own personnal dr's office.

People on state welfare programs would rather go to the ER than make an appointment. What do they care, it all costs them the same.


Dr's offices may not be open at night, but Redimed and places like that are staffed by physicians and have late hours.


You would honestly not believe the STUPID cases we get on the weekends. A woman brought her son in on a Sat and the Dr. ordered a CT of the facial bones, did he have an accident? Did he fall? Was his nose sore at least? NO. His mother stated he woke up that morning and his "nose looked crooked". Was anything wrong, you might ask, NO.

By the way if a pt insists that the Dr. check, they have to. Because god forbid, a Dr. refuse and tell the pt nothing is wrong and something actually is, the Dr gets sued for everything he/she is worth. It's called cover-your-ass medicine.

LiberalNation
01-15-2008, 03:12 PM
A huge problem with the current ER situation are dipshit parents who treat the ER as their own personnal dr's office.
Yep, hey I never said it was all the hospitial and docs fault.

Trigg
01-15-2008, 03:15 PM
Yep, hey I never said it was all the hospitial and docs fault.

I know, I needed to vent.

My husband spent all last weekend at the hospital doing assinine studies because people, who could have waited, decided to show up at the ER. Of course all the studies were NORMAL.

Mr. P
01-15-2008, 03:44 PM
ERs SUCK now days...!'m Sorry Trigg. Triage, Triage, Triage! They ain't doing it here now. Just get in line.

The ONLY way to get in fast now is by dialing 911 and takin the truck with lights. Cost ya but.....you get in.

I took a women in a few months ago in severe pain from a kidney stone. She laid in the lobby while other folks with colds a shit went first. The pain finally stopped 30 mins later! She was pissed enough she left.

Trigg
01-16-2008, 01:36 PM
ERs SUCK now days...!'m Sorry Trigg. Triage, Triage, Triage! They ain't doing it here now. Just get in line.

The ONLY way to get in fast now is by dialing 911 and takin the truck with lights. Cost ya but.....you get in.

I took a women in a few months ago in severe pain from a kidney stone. She laid in the lobby while other folks with colds a shit went first. The pain finally stopped 30 mins later! She was pissed enough she left.

Well like I said, many dr's practice cover-your-ass medicine, doing every test known to man so they won't get sued.

If the gov. required out of pocket payment from welfair recipients the lines at the ER would probably go down.

manu1959
01-16-2008, 01:43 PM
Well like I said, many dr's practice cover-your-ass medicine, doing every test known to man so they won't get sued.

If the gov. required out of pocket payment from welfair recipients the lines at the ER would probably go down.

wait till there is national health care and the poor get to shell out a $50 copay.....:laugh2:

Mr. P
01-16-2008, 02:13 PM
Well like I said, many dr's practice cover-your-ass medicine, doing every test known to man so they won't get sued.

If the gov. required out of pocket payment from welfair recipients the lines at the ER would probably go down.

If they just operate a responsible triage the very ill will not wait hrs for the care they need. First come first served just don't get it in an ER.

Kathianne
01-16-2008, 02:18 PM
If they just operate a responsible triage the very ill will not wait hrs for the care they need. First come first served just don't get it in an ER.

Having had both my parents in various states of 'serious illness' for a combined total of about 9 years, we never waited for care, not once. Those of you that knew me then, they went to the ER quite a bit. Since each visit to ER 99% of the time required hospital admittance, the wait once inside the ER and monitors/IV etc being in place, well! I remember several times spending literally hours in ER with one of the folks sleeping with beeping monitors. Always wanted to make sure they got to their room alright.

At the end with my dad, one of my sons or my brother would go with him or the ambulance.

I'll never understand people that make the ER their 1st choice provider when a emergency care or their regular MD would be far easier and more cost effective.

Mr. P
01-16-2008, 02:32 PM
Having had both my parents in various states of 'serious illness' for a combined total of about 9 years, we never waited for care, not once. Those of you that knew me then, they went to the ER quite a bit. Since each visit to ER 99% of the time required hospital admittance, the wait once inside the ER and monitors/IV etc being in place, well! I remember several times spending literally hours in ER with one of the folks sleeping with beeping monitors. Always wanted to make sure they got to their room alright.

At the end with my dad, one of my sons or my brother would go with him or the ambulance.

I'll never understand people that make the ER their 1st choice provider when a emergency care or their regular MD would be far easier and more cost effective.

Even those with insurance and a regular Dr. make the ER a first choice after hrs or on weekends in an EMERGENCY. Go figure. :slap:

Kathianne
01-16-2008, 02:56 PM
Even those with insurance and a regular Dr. make the ER a first choice after hrs or on weekends in an EMERGENCY. Go figure. :slap:

If that were the case, there wouldn't be such lines as seen. Literally there are people waiting with temperatures, flu, etc. These did not come on after 6pm. Emergency care units are open from 7-7, 7 days a week, at least around here, granted a major metro area.

Trigg
01-16-2008, 03:38 PM
If that were the case, there wouldn't be such lines as seen. Literally there are people waiting with temperatures, flu, etc. These did not come on after 6pm. Emergency care units are open from 7-7, 7 days a week, at least around here, granted a major metro area.

Ditto:

I have said many times I live in the boonies.

That said a good size city is no more than 1/2 from me and there are redi-meds and other places staffed by Dr's until 9 at night 7 days a week.

Granted there is trouble with the ER staff not assessing the major problems, and seperating those people from the ones suffering from a cold and that needs to be dealt with also.

LiberalNation
01-16-2008, 03:45 PM
I went to a late night clinic in my doctors office when I had appendicitis. It still took a long time but I saw a doc nearly immediately there. We knew not to go to the ER if we wanted service without waiting hours just to get shoddy care. Once I was in the hospital for tests I was treated like crap the first few hours, it was the middle of the night, there weren’t any doctors there and the nurses didn’t want to wake one up. Lying on the floor pukin my guts up while they kept trying to get me to drink a lot of this yucky stuff for a ct scan. Course I kept throwing it up, and after about the twenty time and the 2nd scan they finally decided to admit me, nearly knock me out with phenigrin or however you spell it to get the stuff down. I don't remember anything after that accept for a vague fighting with someone trying to get me out of bed. I was being wheeled to surgery the next morning tho.

Mr. P
01-16-2008, 06:00 PM
Ditto:

I have said many times I live in the boonies.

That said a good size city is no more than 1/2 from me and there are redi-meds and other places staffed by Dr's until 9 at night 7 days a week.

Granted there is trouble with the ER staff not assessing the major problems, and seperating those people from the ones suffering from a cold and that needs to be dealt with also.

That's all I'm saying...cept it not just trouble, it's major trouble, people shouldn't die or suffer in an ER lobby waiting for care.

typomaniac
01-16-2008, 06:26 PM
ER waits dangerously long in U.S.: studySorry, but I can't hold it back anymore: I have to ask.

What was the ER waiting for (and why for such a dangerously long time)? :confused:

Mr. P
01-16-2008, 06:33 PM
Sorry, but I can't hold it back anymore: I have to ask.

What was the ER waiting for (and why for such a dangerously long time)? :confused:

$$$
They are slammed with non-pay visits. Many are shutting down totally, many have reorganized to be more cost efficient at the expense of those who most need the ER care.

Hugh Lincoln
01-16-2008, 08:33 PM
I'll never understand people that make the ER their 1st choice provider when a emergency care or their regular MD would be far easier and more cost effective.

For illegal aliens, who jam our country's ERs, it's a great choice. By law, ERs must treat anyone, no questions asked. Whatever attempts the hospital makes at trying to recoup from the illegals is obviously going nowhere. So, illegals get millions of dollars in free medical care, ahead of the rest of us, and guess who eats the cost? My liberal Republican (former) state rep was door-to-door campaigning last year, and to my surprise, she actually knew about this, and told me about the dozen or so California hospitals that have had to declare bankruptcy as a result.

Living in a Third World country has its drawbacks. Unfortunately, it's what we've got to deal with.