Wait Times

[2bmalenurse007]

Why are wait times at doctors offices and hospital emergency rooms so long?

Thanks:smokin:

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

any number of reasons: people use the emergency rooms for non-emergent situations and that clogs up the flow. Then, when a TRUE emergency comes in, the staff is pulled to work on that situation, so things slow down. Every patient has to be seen by an MD or other licensed person (per state law), and since there are far fewer of them than patients, you have to wait your turn. Sometimes minor surgeries take place in ER and in MD office - this slows down the flow as well. Bottom line, if we treat each person as an individual and not move them thru like cattle then someone has to wait. IMHO it would help to have minor emergency clinics away from the hospital to accommodate people after regular hours and on weekends.

[CHATSDALE]

i have never seen a er or a drs office that really considered the patients time as being important

i have been to md office early in am to have blood drawn for a afternoon appt and i have seen patients who were weak from being npo having to wait for lab personal to decide to draw blood, they had nothing to offer them after the draw

these are not charity er or clinics these people get money paid in full by insurance/private pay

once when i was in an er with a family member there was a man who had been working on his farm when his wife was in an auto accident

he was in er when a security guard came up and looked at his dusty clothes and asked him WHAT TO YO THINK YOU ARE DOING HERE?'

[ladybug-1rn]

Many times in a clinic it may be because the patients prior to you are not on time. A clinic tells the patient to arrive 15 minutes early to check in and fill out appropriate paperwork or health history. On more occasions than not patients do not arrive early and do not have time to fill out the health history. 15 minutes can make a big difference.

[Fiona59]

Lack of GPs are clogging Canadian ERs. No family doctor, live in a small town, usually no medi centre to use, so it's off to the ER for everything.

In large cities, its the same, and then you get people who think they will be treated by "better" doctors at the ER than a walk in clinic.

[Blee O'Myacin, BSN, RN]

Why are wait times at doctors offices and hospital emergency rooms so long?

Thanks:smokin:

I can add that when patients are not discharged from the floors until the MDs write the orders - usually after a full day of seeing patients in the office or inpatient, we have all our beds filled with holds, and have stretchers lining the walls with patients on portable cardiac monitors having to have their MI or TIA in the hall, then we just can't take any more patients back because each RN has six (our ratio is 1:4) patients and we just can't do everything for everyone in a timely manner.

Trust me, if it was a true emergency you wouldn't be waiting long.

Blee

[RunnerRN, BSN, RN]

i have never seen a er or a drs office that really considered the patients time as being important

That is because, in the ER, the time constraints of patients isn't important. Not to sound evil or witchy, but my job is simply to facilitate treatment and keep people from dying. Not to be worked into someone's busy schedule (Burger King medicine....Have it your way). The simple reasons that ERs have such long wait times are lack of staff, increase in patients needing to be seen, increase in EDs that are closing, lack of inpatient beds, and increase in pt acuity. In my ED, we never have problems with staffing in my department, but lack of staff directly contributes to the lack of inpt bed problem - we have days when we have lots of beds open, but blocked due to lack of floor RN staff.

[BrnEyedGirl, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN]

Re: Waiting 7 hours for an appointment

[Dixiecup]

I live in a moderate size community. Almost all of the physicians offices have signs posted that say "if you've been waiting for longer than thirty minutes, please inform the receptionist".

I'm amazed that there's almost no wait time in the clinics in my town. I guess they've finally learned not to double schedule.