How Long Is Your Wait In The Er?

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Specializes in ED, MED-SERG, CCU, ICU, IPR.

Because of closing hositals in our city and an increase in the population,

our ER has an average waiting time of 4 to 6 hours.

I personally don't see that as unreasonable since the majority of the people wanting to be seen are the cough and cold variety.

Seems that lately, anger directed towards the Triage nurse has gotten worse as Joe Public percieves it as an act of "poor customer service" if not seen :angryfire within an hour. I wait longer than that in my doctor's office and I don't get mad.

Most of us work 12 hours, non stop trying to see and treat people plus deal with Medics coming in the back door.

Any comments, suggestions or stories to share?

ER nurse on the edge

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One of our docs just wrote an article for our city paper about this same topic. I don't know about an "average" wait time, but I can say that we've had pts there for days....very sick pts waiting on ICU beds that end up staying for their entire treatment in the ER.

When I hear "we've been here for six hours" I want to laugh...and I usually do say something like..wow, that's not bad.

People have to know WHEN to come to the ER, but unfortunately for some (indigents, illegals) we are the only option...we HAVE to treat them regardless of ability to pay.

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A few years ago I worked at an inner city ER that had a wait time of over four hours for non-acute patients (not bad when you think about it). Anyway, the triage nurses were continuously harrassed by patients, families and friends making it very hard to do the job. We had a security guard in the ER at all times, but that really didn't help. What really turned the situation around was when the hospital hired off-duty police officers (complete with guns and arresting power) to monitor the waiting/triage area. The wait time was still over four hours, but the nastiness (and threats to the staff) stopped. Amazing.

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Seems that lately, anger directed towards the Triage nurse has gotten worse as Joe Public percieves it as an act of "poor customer service" if not seen :angryfire within an hour.

Nowadays folks think that any wait means they are receiving "bad customer service". Have they ever thought that demand has far outpaced supply? Nope....

Good luck ER nurses. I have no thoughts on how to solve your particular situation, but I do think we could solve this type of problem in general if we teach our youngster manners and patience.

I am not saying we should put up with bad service, but we should be aware that even good things may take time.

Agape

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Specializes in Inpatient Acute Rehab.

Our wait does not generally exceed 20 minutes. It used to, but we opened up 3 levels, and made several triage nurse positions. It is great!!!

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Our wait does not generally exceed 20 minutes. It used to, but we opened up 3 levels, and made several triage nurse positions. It is great!!!

do you have any openings?

i'm completely burnt, and think more than one triage nurse has got to be nirvana

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I work in a level one trauma center with about 63K visits/day. We have two RNs and one paramedic at triage from 1100 to 2300 and this helps tremendously. Our wait can be anywhere from 0 minutes to 4 hours and yes, we hold many, many admitted pts in the ER.

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Specializes in ER.
I work in a level one trauma center with about 63K visits/day. We have two RNs and one paramedic at triage from 1100 to 2300 and this helps tremendously. Our wait can be anywhere from 0 minutes to 4 hours and yes, we hold many, many admitted pts in the ER.

Same minus the medic in triage, but we sometimes have a tech as a "meeter-greeter" they will get CC and VS...our wait can vary from 0 minutes to 6-8 hours depending on the number of holds we have...when I left at 1130 tonight, we had 59 in ER w/ still 21 in waiting room...just a typical Monday... :rolleyes:

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One of the ER's in my area sends movie passes to patients that have to wait longer than 30min to be seen, I still don't get this.......

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Specializes in ER.
One of the ER's in my area sends movie passes to patients that have to wait longer than 30min to be seen, I still don't get this.......

we did this in the hospital I used to work at...It's all about PR and incentive....and Press Gainey... :)

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Our ED wait is anywhere from a few minutes-coded in the main lobby to 4-6 hrs. Unfortunately people use the ED as a walk in clinic for every stupid complaint that got the out of work to the every critical hangnail. Of course these are the patients that return the satisfaction and comment forms. If the ED was truly an ED and the family docs did what they were supposed to do wait times would be reasonable. Unfortunately what we see is the people that may have called the PMD and they were told to go immediately to the ED-they will be waiting for you LOL. Sometimes I cannot contain myself and must turn my head. It is really a sad state of affairs when people wait 6 hrs, only to be seen and d/c in less than 15 minutes. Wake up-you did not belong in the ED. And of course those with the Special Insurance that we are all paying for are there every other day-delaying times even more. OK I am done on my soap box for now-just had a horrible 10 hrs shift that turned into 12. Holding only one in ED-something must be wrong. LOL :angryfire

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Specializes in ED, MED-SERG, CCU, ICU, IPR.

I know that feeling of frustration after a long, busy shift in the ER.

Everything hurts and there is little gratitude for your hard work.

But, as one ER nurse put it, stupid people = job security.

Even so, it is difficult to put aside how health care workers in the ER are treated.

One person with flu symptoms told me that that she did not care if she spread the flu to me by being in the ER because I "could take it".

That was 48 hours ago and I am home with the flu.

G-d bless us, everyone.

Our ED wait is anywhere from a few minutes-coded in the main lobby to 4-6 hrs. Unfortunately people use the ED as a walk in clinic for :balloons: every stupid complaint that got the out of work to the every critical hangnail. Of course these are the patients that return the satisfaction and comment forms. If the ED was truly an ED and the family docs did what they were supposed to do wait times would be reasonable. Unfortunately what we see is the people that may have called the PMD and they were told to go immediately to the ED-they will be waiting for you LOL. Sometimes I cannot contain myself and must turn my head. It is really a sad state of affairs when people wait 6 hrs, only to be seen and d/c in less than 15 minutes. Wake up-you did not belong in the ED. And of course those with the Special Insurance that we are all paying for are there every other day-delaying times even more. OK I am done on my soap box for now-just had a horrible 10 hrs shift that turned into 12. Holding only one in ED-something must be wrong. LOL :angryfire
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