How do you answer this question?
It seems to be the triage nurses job to keep everyone posted about the "wait time" I got so irritated at that question yesterday! I had a lady with a "toe infection" who waited 3 hours. She asked me about the wait EVERY 15MINUTES. She had a toe infection for 3WEEKS! Why was today such an EMERGENCY? Because she had a date and wanted to wear open toed shoes:madface:
Seriously...what do you tell people waiting to get to a bed? Can you ever even guess? I try not to EVER tell someone "15minutes" or "2hours" because if you get ambulances in the back door and the pt ends up waiting--whew...bad scene.
and, how long to most people end up waiting in your ED?