ER-Forum Blog

Emergency department wait times are on the rise.

In the on-going discussion on emergency department wait times, a new report published by Press Gainey states that patients in the U.S. spent an average of four hours and seven minutes in U.S. Emergency Departments in 2009 – a four-minute increase from 2008.  

The study included in Press Ganey's 2010 Emergency Department Pulse Report: Patient Perspectives on American Health Care, found that nationwide, patients today on average are waiting in EDs for longer periods of time than ever before.

While some states have shown improvement or stayed relatively the same, others have seen a sharp increase in wait times. In Utah for example, patients must wait eight-and-a-half hours in emergency departments, on average. That's nearly an hour and a half longer than the state's average time spent the previous year.

The data is based on evaluations of more than 1.5 million patients treated at 1,893 hospitals in 2009. The findings and observations highlight progress being made in hospitals, emphasize areas for improvement, and explore the path to improving the quality of health care in the United States.

Interestingly, the findings showed that despite longer wait times, patient satisfaction with U.S. hospital emergency departments stayed about the same in 2009, following a five-year upward trend. More than half the states were able to improve wait times or keep increases to a minimum.

The report found that communication is imperative in providing patients with satisfactory emergency department experiences. Patients are willing to wait for care as long as they are kept informed about wait times. Patients who waited more than four hours, but received "good" or "very good" information about delays were just as satisfied as patients who spent less than one hour in the emergency department.

How is your ED dealing with wait times and patient satisfaction? Is your emergency department bucking the trend presented by the study? Please share your thoughts and experiences.