What's the longest er wait time you have Even seen

badmamajama · Feb 1, 2012

Before nursing school I was an ED tech for two years. At that time I was often put up front to be the Triage tech. I was the first person you saw when you got passed the metal detectors. My job was to get the chief complaint, demographics, put on the armband of the patient, and if necessary let the triage nurse know if there was someone that needed to be seen in a hurry, for example chest pain, active bleeding, GSW to the head (true story), etc. I heard everything, was called every name in the book, and yes saw wait times that were pretty outrageous. I once had a 2yr old boy brought in by his parents who had an obvious fracture; and by obvious I mean severe deformity. (kids don't normally have two elbows.) This poor kid waited for two hours to be seen. The frustrated triage nurse could only say "as long as he has a pulse and is breathing he is fine." What I knew yet couldn't tell these (understandably)infuriated parents was that we had two active codes going on in the back, and countless patients who needed ICU level care for their strokes, respiratory illnesses, etc. All this they couldn't see. In the lobby where they waited they saw people muching Doritos and leisurely watching Montel on the TV's. Another time I had a 40-something man check in c/o abd pain a little while before I got off shift. The next day when I came in, fourteen hours after he checked in, he was still there. He was not just complaining anymore, he was on the floor in the fetal position. When I saw him I decided to check on him because it had been so long and he began vomiting lovely coffee-ground emesis. That was his ticket to the front of the line, otherwise he would have been there for a while longer. Again, the back was unusually chaotic at that time.

Like Larry said, if you have only been to the ED as a patient then it may be hard to understand why the waits are insane. You can't imagine what is going on in the back just by looking at the lobby. If it seems like a crowded bus terminal in the front you can bet it's a cage fight in the back. Oh and the guy that just walked in who looks seemingly okay may have just told me he has fantasies about killing his whole family and wants help. Or he could have told me he is having chest pains and actually is is having an MI right there in the lobby. You never know what is going to come in that door.

What p***es me off to no end are the people that come in, say they've had a stomach ache for three hours, start chowing on vending machine food while they wait, despite me instructing them not to eat, then after waiting for three hours they call 911 from their cell phone in the lobby, making EMS have to come evaluate them. True story. In my county EMS is authorized to advise patients transport is not indicated in some cases and advise them to find another ride to seek treatment. Abdominal pain is one of the exceptions. All abd pn must be transported so we actually had EMS have to evaluate this girl, put her in the ambulance, and drive around the parking lot to the ambulance bay where they marched her through the back and down the hall to the triage desk where they were instructed to take her by the charge nurse. I was the one with the privelidge of telling her she had to be triaged again and the whole process started over since she signed out AMA before. This was technically a new visit. What kept the smile off my face when I told her was the knowledge that she would never pay for any of this.

T

~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN · Feb 8, 2012

Mondays are probably our biggest wait times of 2-3 hrs at times. That's when we have every room filled, 4 hallway beds filled and still 11 people in the waiting room and maybe 6 of those in beds waiting to be admitted.

Vanillanut, DNP, RN, APRN · Feb 14, 2012

I am an ED nurse and I see wait times anywhere between 1-2 hrs on a not-busy day to around 4-6hrs (to see a RN, not a doctor- about a 2-3 hr triage time). Our hospital is crazy busy, and there simply isn't enough rooms at the inn for everyone. I've seen patients being held in the ED for days- yes, DAYS- waiting for a bed.

Also, not everyone who thinks they need a bed really does.

I read the post about the woman who miscarried, and often I see the exact same case in my ED. A woman, PV bleed and known early weeks preg, abdo pain, etc. The truth is as long as they are & remain hemodynamically stable (we reassess), there's not a heck of a lot that can be changed about their situation if they were to be seen ASAP vs in 1 hr. I do feel bad for the women who miscarry and come in crying, knowing, or fearing the worst- but my hands are tied when I have 1 bed, they are stable (or more stable) compared to an MI or hot stroke.

Yes, bleeding and being in pain is not fun. But neither is being yelled at, cursed at, spat at, threatened, etc when all you're trying to do is prioritize patients based on acuity.

And last of all..... having chest pain does not mean you are sicker then someone else. I wish people would understand this. Chest pain can be a lot of things and when first investigated should be ruled out as being cardiac in origin. If your chest pain is cardiac in origin, and something acute is actually happening, believe me you will be seen quicker.

I tell patients to feel free to use 911 services or come to the ED if they think it's a true emergency. But then I follow that up by saying if it's not a true emergency, be prepared for a bit of a wait, because an ambulance ride does not ensure you get bumped to the front of the line. If they can see their GP/a walk in, to do so.

eden · Feb 15, 2012

Well I have had a couple 12 hour waits but I didn't mind because it wasn't a life threatening emergency. I still needed to be seen ( broken bone) but I understood that others were in need of more immediate attention.

The only time I was mad/upset about an ER wait was after an MVA. I was 35 weeks pregnant, taken to the hospital via ambulance, contracting every 2 minutes and instead of going straight to OB to assess my baby, I waited 3 hours in the ER to be seen for my injuries and then they sent me upstairs.

I figured MVA+ambulance+baby not moving = immediate attention but I guess not.

6spdftwtm · Feb 15, 2012

There's two very important details that everyone is leaving out:

1 - The ER I'm from is divided into two areas of care. I don't know if many or most ER's are setup like ours, but we have a quickcare sectioned off from the rest of the ER. Esentially, it's a 12-bed area that's open from 0800 to 0100 and staffed by one or two mid-levels, depending on time of day, and 2-3 RN's and secretary. It's really like two ER's in one. People get infuriated when they have to wait, but quickcare CAN NOT see clients that are in need to true emergency care. If you have stable vitals and stubbed your toe and there is an open bed on quickcare, then yes...you will go back to a bed prior to the sicker patients. It was setup because people routinely have and always will use the ER as a PCP. However, it also encourages that BAD BAD behavior of skipping by the Dr. office in favor of the ER. Since it is QUICKcare, clients are really moved through there quickly. By definition, client should not require more than one resource (i.e., labs but not xray, xray but not labs, meds and neither xray or labs). People in the lobby who don't understand that get upset...understandable. Be mad at the people using the ER as a PCP...not me.

2 - it's pretty rare to hold admissions in the ER. Usually, the floors and ICU's are excellent about doing what they have to do to get clients moved. On the occassion that we do hold clients and they get nasty, I simply ask them: "what is different about being on the floor versus being here?" I explain that I am a RN, just like who would be watching over them upstairs, there is a physician here, UNlike upstairs. We will get a regular bed from upstairs to make them comfortable...any medication they need to recieve, I can give them. The ONLY thing that's different about here versus there is the setting. Different colored walls and a little less space. We can pull the curtain and turn the lights off and they can be just as comfortable in the ER as they are upstairs. Once that's explained, they usually see it my way because it's true. I don't like holding clients...it is frustrating for me, but it is more frustrating for them.

Late,

Trav

schroonman · Mar 21, 2012

I had a 5 hr. wait for a chest injury, but during that time I had the only speaks portugese teenager, that had a real green complexion, sitting doubled over with his cousin to interpret, pass out on the floor; the baby waiting for a lifeflight, that didn't get in in time because of a sudden summer thunderstorm; the kid that fell out of the tree at scout camp that had an exposed kneecap; the first head-on collision from the local interstate, arriving by EMS, with grandma and grandpa hitting the other car with grandma and grandpa, both couples needing to be cut out of their cars; the 8 year-old that crashed his bike into a tree at the bottom of a long steep downhill, and was left by his buds on their way to the Little League field, after his Mom went looking for him and found that he had crawled to the roadside with what turned out to be a broken femur; The second car crash with a couple that looked like Ma and Pa Kettle, arriving on back boards by EMS.

I understood where I was in line and how it was changing and was happy that I got seen and didn't have to stay the night, as I was an hour and a half from home. It did turn out to be a really bad bruise(I think they said 7th rib) and I got to go home. (the injury was on the job and I was on the clock for the wait and treatment and the drive home)

[i don't know what happened with the italics, don't know how they got turned on or how to turn off]

chickfire13 · Mar 23, 2012

Longest wait time out in the lobby I have seen is 29 hours. Longest time waiting for admission in the ED is over 2 days. The other day there were 15 people waiting for ICU admission in the ER, we also recieved 6 trauma helicopter runs on top of the regular ambulance trauma runs that day. People use the ER as thier PCP and as a clinic and thats why they can wait 29 hours to be seen because they do not have true emergencies. If you have a life threatening emergency we will do everything we can to get you in a room to be seen by a doctor as soon as possible.

allstudentnurses, ASN, RN · Mar 25, 2012

I have had patients tell me they came to my hospital because they had been waiting at Grady for 18 hours, not sure if that's true, but I have seen Grady have 80 or more patients in triage at a time.

RoxCRN · Apr 14, 2012

The longest wait time I had in the ER while I was working was over 10 hours. Compared to some other posts, doesnt seem like a lot, but I should mention this was a suburban/rural hospital with only 24 ED beds, and 115 inpatient beds counting ICU. Not tiny but not huge and less resources than the suburban/city hosp I work at now. There was also a lot bad weather and the squad radio went down so for about 2 hours ambulances were just "showing up" before the radio came up. It really sucked, the hospital was at capacity, it was a weekend, staffing was down, the ED was packed, patients were in the hallways. We had paper signs adding bed numbers taped to the walls above the hall beds. I was the charge nurse that night in the ED and I had a load of 6 patients myself trying to run the department. When I left in the morning I had seriously contemplated never going back. I had called administration to request going on bypass because we already had 2 ICU patients holding in the ED because there were no ICU beds open in house and was told that we could not because the policy was that there had to be at least 4 ICU holds before we could even talk about bypass. That and the hospital across county already was on bypass! Lucky for us that night we didn't get a bad trauma...if we had I don't know what we would have done. We had the housekeepers pulling the old monitor out of the basement storage so that we had enough equiptment to monitor these patients. Kudos to my nurses though. Most stayed over passed the end of their shifts to help, otherwise the patient ratio would have been 10:1!! The poor Triage nurse had a waiting room with 30+ patients, most with IV lines and blood work cooking just waiting for a room in the back. Fortunately everyone survived and nothing adverse happened to anyone in the waiting room. I rounded on all the waiting room patients hourly as did the triage nurse when she could...I think thats what kept us going and the patients waiting were more understanding that we didn't just forget about them. That was the worst working night of my life. when I think about that 12hours I sometimes wish I was a dog groomer instead....you know just a little less stress. :)

Shaylab5212 · Jan 18, 2013

I'm an in El Paso and me my husband and three children have had to wait over 8 hours just for them to prescribe me an antibiotic and they couldn't get it straight on why I was there my poor children wasted a whole day in the ER because these people can't get it together.

Sassy5d · Jan 18, 2013

It doesn't matter where you are from. It's an emergency room.

When you sign in, you are not brought in by order of arrival but by symptom and urgency of need for being seen.

It's also flu season, so add that to the mix of normal volume of people that use emergency services, many, many times for non-emergent issues.

I would like to add, you are free to leave at any point in your stay. I'm assuming that whatever reason you were in the emergency department, after assessment, other's illnesses were deemed more urgent than yours.

I'm glad you posted this. It pretty much sums up the attitude and 'respect' that is given to emergency room staff. You didn't say why you choose to seek emergency services, but based in your statements, I'm assuming it was possible what you came for could have easily been treated by a regular doctor visit, an urgent care visit or maybe even longer treatment at home.

cayenne06, MSN, CNM · Jan 18, 2013

I'm an in El Paso and me my husband and three children have had to wait over 8 hours just for them to prescribe me an antibiotic and they couldn't get it straight on why I was there my poor children wasted a whole day in the ER because these people can't get it together.

Are you being sarcastic? Have you read this thread?!?!?!?!?!!!!