ER waiting room...

[wdwpjs]

I will try to keep this short guys! DD15 fell last night while at our block party with all the neighbors. She was playing chase and was on "base", the electric box in front of the house. One of the other children came up from behind her and pushed her. She then fell into the electric box hitting her chin on it. Stitches were a must! We left for the ER and got there around 9:30. We finally saw the doctor at 3:00 in the a.m. We were in the back and in our "room" for 5 hours b/f we even saw a doctor. It was another hour b/f he put 9 stitches in her chin. We got home around 4:30 last night. My point is how long is too long for the ER? 6 hours for 9 stitches? If the ER was so busy why didnt they call another doctor in? When we arrived we counted the people in the waiting area and there were 5 families ahead of us. Didnt think that was going to bo that long of a wait. I understand a wait would always be necessary but 6 hours! What is the norm? We only saw one doctor behind the desk all night also.
Thanks for listening to me rant!

 

[dis-happy]

I've been fortunate on my ER wait times. Last spring we were there 3-4 times! I've heard of long waits, a big reason is the triage system. People who come in after you who have more pressing emergencies (ie. like my son whose throat started closing up on him after a wasp sting) will be seen immediately. Even though your dd needed stitches, it wasn't life threatening.

Some things you can do in the future (in non life threatening situations) : call the ER and ask how long they think the wait might be. You could then decide on another hospital if necessary. Or try to wait until morning and go to Urgent Care or the ped instead (I did this one night when we weren't sure about my dd's arm, she had fallen off a horse, urgent care didn't want to treat us because they said she might need a CT scan--she has also hit her head but I wasn't as concerned about that, it happens a lot with horses--I didn't want to go to the ER, urgent care was just covering their you-know-what). Instead we went to the ped the next day, who laughed at the possible concussion (obviously NOT), she gave us a slip for arm x-ray (back at the hospital where we didn't go to the ER), everything was fine.

With stitches on a face I would want a plastic surgeon to do it anyway, which would usually mean waiting until the next day.

Some hospitals in large cities have a guarantee that you'll be seen within an hour or you don't pay. That sounds pretty good to me!

 

[teresajoy]

I will try to keep this short guys! DD15 fell last night while at our block party with all the neighbors. She was playing chase and was on "base", the electric box in front of the house. One of the other children came up from behind her and pushed her. She then fell into the electric box hitting her chin on it. Stitches were a must! We left for the ER and got there around 9:30. We finally saw the doctor at 3:00 in the a.m. We were in the back and in our "room" for 5 hours b/f we even saw a doctor. It was another hour b/f he put 9 stitches in her chin. We got home around 4:30 last night. My point is how long is too long for the ER? 6 hours for 9 stitches? If the ER was so busy why didnt they call another doctor in? When we arrived we counted the people in the waiting area and there were 5 families ahead of us. Didnt think that was going to bo that long of a wait. I understand a wait would always be necessary but 6 hours! What is the norm? We only saw one doctor behind the desk all night also.
Thanks for listening to me rant!

Just be thankful she only needed stitches. Last year, five weeks after she had a baby, I had to take my sister to the ER for extremely severe abdominal pains (she compared them to being in labor). We waited over 4 hours for them to get her in. It was found that she actually had numerous blood clots, we could have lost her. One clot was (and still is) a portal vein thrombosis. Which is a very serious medical condition. She ended up in the hospital for 10 days, and is still on medication, and will be the rest of her life. So, even people with very serious medical conditions are made to wait endlessly in the ER, it isn't right, and it can be down right dangerous.

eta: She was actually seen by a triage (nurse? or doctor?) not long after we got there. But, we still had to wait four hours for anyone to actually help her. I still get extremely upset thinking about that week and a half. I've always known how special my sister is, and we've always been close, but thinking I could lose her really made me realize how much I love her.

 

[hugabearjo]

6 hours is rediculous in my opinion. The ER should have been able to predict that and sent some where else. Many commuities have urgent care clinics that are open until midnight. I live in a rural area but a city about 40 min. has several urgent care clinics. I have found that hospitals are the worse. Please check your bill when you get it to say how serious your case was, only because, we were on vacation to Disneyland and my Mom had an allergic reaction (hives, not life threatening) after 12 hours they sent us home with cream. When the bill came they charged her for a trauma that would reflect the time we spent there and it was worth many more $$$ then it should have been. We called and talked to the hospital and they were no help at all. Said it was accurate. We we contacted the insurance companies (she has duel insurance and the hospital knew it would all be paid for) Amazing how the story changed and it was dropped to just an emergency room visit, they claimed it was just a typo. I don't believe that for a minute because Mom questioned it and was told it was right.

I hope your daughter is feeling better and that it heals quickly.

 

[Yensid_MD]

The primary problem with ER's is that too many people use them as their only medical care arriving with problems that could have been dealt with the next day. I won't even mention those that are considered frequent flyers. This clogs the whole works. Additionally another problem is all the growth and development that has been going on with homes and the population. Hospitals cannot easily just get bigger with more rooms and doctors and nurses. The only hospital in our area recently made a huge addition, which the county has already out grown due to all the growth.

I am glad to hear that your daughter is OK.

Triage makes the decision on what is most urgent. When you arrived they could have been fully loaded with patients in the back. The only way those patients leave the ER is to be released or to be sent up to one of the beds in the hospital. Until the bed opens up downstairs the doctors/nurses in the back cannot see a new patient. In the meantime someone suffering from chest pains could have arrived at the hospital and they are going to go before someone needing stitches. I know this because it happened to me when I needed 7 staples in my head. I had been bandaged up by the medical staff at the softball field, and about when I thought it would be me next a gunshot victim came in, minor wound but all shooting victims have priority at the ER.

How to fix all this? Encourage your children to consider a career in nursing. Their is a critical shortage at this point. Lead an effort for improved ER facilities in your municipality. It is not an easy fix. Unfortunately you cant crank people through like it is Jiffy Lube. Use Urgent Care facilities. They are traditionally much quicker for minor problems.

With all that said I agree that waiting that long is ridiculous, but it is not the doctors and nurses fault. They would love to move people through more quickly but they have a job to do and I dont think any of us want them cutting corners.

 

[HelenePA]

I have 3 hospitals with in 10 min of me.. 2 in the same town about 5 min over... those are always packed!! the other one is always dead (ahahaha) we'll go to this one before the other 2 we're usually in and out with in 10 minutes! the others can be 8 hour waits! I guess it depeneds on where they are located... if the had ambulance emergencies come in after you were there they would be seen first.. like when me and my daughter were life flighted in and i was preggo with her sister we were not held in the waiting room... I guess it all depeneds on that kind of stuff as well... Glad to hear she's okay!

 

[CastleCreations]

Maybe it's a Florida thing. I was working in the ED, in the peds section, there was a 12 year old boy who needed a few stitches in his chin. They waited hours and hours. In the meantime, the poor ED Doc, had to see all of the other patients, and document on them all, which is very time consuming. We have a small peds emergency walk in clinic nearby that is open until midnight. This has been convienent for us when in need.

 

[Tikicampers]

The children's urgent care center near us has "call ahead seating" like some retaurants. It's not advertised, I just saw the sign for it the last time I was there. You call them and your name goes on the list, and they give you an idea of how long it will take for your child to be seen. DH and I both have the number programed into our cell phones.

 

[flying_babyb]

Small town here (thousand people max).
Er wait is 3 hours usally. You can gaurntee to spend at least 5 hours there total. If your a Cardiac paient you can be guarnteed a half hour wait then 8 to 9 hours in the er.

 

[pigletliz]

The ER wait depends on the severity of your injury and how many other people with serious injuries or illnesses are already in the exam rooms. Anything critical or life-threatening goes to the front of the line. Six hours is a long time to wait, but you don't know what was wrong with the people who were already there. I wander through the ER a lot. Many of the beds are filled with people waiting for test results, x-rays, specialists, etc. Even ambulances are waiting to drop off their patients until the ER beds are available. It is kind of hard to tell someone that it will take a long time and to go somewhere else because people are always coming in. Hope your daughter is feeling better.

 

[bushdianee]

In April I was on a trip to AZ with my sister who was 18 weeks pregnant and had started bleeding. We took her to the ER at 3 am and didn't get out until almost 1pm. She wasn't even put into an examining room until after she'd had an ultrasound at 7. Thank goodness we heard the heartbeat and saw the baby moving around on the ultrasound which put our minds at ease a little. Luckily for us everything turned out okay. We were all pretty stressed out that trip! Our ER that we use here at home is great usually a few hours.

 

[robsmom]

Did you see the news story this week of the women who died will waiting at the hospital and that her husband and one other person called 911 from the ER. Just crazy how bad this has become.

In the last few years of his life my grandfather had breathing issues. My mother had to take him into the emergency room multiple times. In NJ, we really don't have after hour care centers so everyone has to use the emergency room. In addition, the closest hospital was in a rather poor area. What we learned was that way too many people use the ER as their regular doctor because they don't have insurance. We also learned that if you come in on an ambulance you will go directly into a room/cube, that weekend nights are the worse, and that gun shot and stabbing wounds will trump an 85 year having asthma/breathing issues!

We are lucky, our local hospital ER has been awesome. I went in on christmas morning (knife/bagel/finger/stiches) and was in and out in an hour. My cousin took her son from my house when her son fell and he had stiches and was home in 45 minutes.

 

[Tissa]

I've been to the ER several times with my kids and the normal wait is 5-6 hours. I'm very happy when it's less. We live in a major city and lots of kids needing attention. That's just the way it is.

 

[familyS]

We are very lucky that in our area we have many hospitals to choose from.
The closest hospital actually has a children's ER off of the regular ER so the children are not exposed to the cases that come in from the helipad.
Since the children's area was opened, we haven't waited more than 10 minutes to be seen (broken bone, punctured kneecap, stitches). In fact, they rushed us over to that section and didn't even ask for health insurance cards until after we got the child in and seen. Then I just gave them the card, signed for treatment, and verified the information on an ID band before it was applied. I didn't even have to leave my child's side.
I feel for you, before this children's ER was open we did have to wait about 45 minutes when my infant had a raging fever, and that felt like f o r e v e r.

 

[teresajoy]

I feel for you, before this children's ER was open we did have to wait about 45 minutes when my infant had a raging fever, and that felt like f o r e v e r.

I can feel for you there. On Lydia's first birthday she came down with a horrible case of the flu, very high fever and extremely lethargic. We had to wait in Urgent Care for 5 hours before we were seen. This was around the time that a few children had dyed from the flu, so I was really scared.

 

[kristenrice]

I work as a paramedic for a private ambulance service in the greater Grand Rapids area. We service four Grand Rapids hospitals, including one level 1 trauma center. The waits sometimes are amazing! As previous posters have mentioned, a lot of the overcrowding stems from people using the ER's as their primary source of medical care. The emergency department is meant to be a place to go to stabilize an emergent problem until your primary doctor can evaluate and treat you further. I could go on and on about what people call an ambulance for, but suffice it to say that generally, I am providing merely transportation to the emergency room and nothing else. When we arrive with a patient, we advise the charge nurse of what the patient's chief complaint is and he/she tells us where to bring the patient. Many times, when it is busy, the patient is brought to the waiting room if their condition is not life-threatening. This makes a lot of our patients very upset. They tend to see the ambulance as their free ticket past the waiting room. Unfortunately, the hospital doesn't care how you arrived...they are only concerned with why you are there. If a person's spouse drives them to the hospital because they are having trouble breathing, you can bet they deserve to go straight to the back over the person that took an ambulance because they've had a sore throat for 3 days. (Don't laugh....I'm not making that up)

I agree that six hours is a little long for stitches, but I know that in our area, long ER waits aren't unheard of. I am hearing a lot more people say that they only called the ambulance so that they can get in right away. I'm so glad that all my medical training is appreciated

 

[Steph9072]

Our ER,only one in our town, use to be like that. In the last 10 years they have started where you check in and immediately a nurse does a triage on you. Then depending on the severity you either go back to a room or go to the waiting room. Ours has signs to para phrase that it doesn't matter who is first patients will be seen according to the severity. Is it possible that a wreck or other major emergency took place??? Or maybe there was a death. In our ER if there is a death all practically stands still until 1.) family is told 2.) family says good bye 3.) the body is removed. But I totally agree 6 hours is way toooooo long to wait!! I would have thought somebody would have notified you. I know they could not tell you medical stuff about people but say. We are running behind because of a serious medical condition that has came in or something of that sort.

I hope dd is on mend and feeling better real soon.

 

[TBGOES2DISNEY]

My DH has a relative who died waiting in the ER. He was coughing up blood and they kept him waiting, and he died. I don't remember any other details right now. The hospital was sued and lost. That's so sad b/c they could have saved him. They need to have some sort of risk analysis based on symptoms or something so they know who to check immediately or something...

 

[badblackpug]

*donning flame retardent gear*

I am an ER nurse, and, yes, sometimes the waits are up to 6-8 hours. I will explain to you why.

Patients are triaged on urgency level.
Priority Level #1 is a patient actively being recusitated (cpr in progress)

Priority level #2 are patients with a life or limb threatening illness that need to be seen ASAP (chest pain with ekg changes, stroke symptoms, respiratory difficulty with low oxygen levels, amputations, gunshots, stabbings)

Priority level #3 are patients that are patients that need to be seen and treated, but are stable enough to wait (pneumonia symptoms, asthma with lowish oxygen levels, fractures)

Priority level #4 are non urgent injuries/illnesses that need treatment without the possibility of being life threatening and probably could have been seen at urgi care (stitches, minor burns, strep throats, kids with fevers)

Priority level #5 are the ones that should have stayed home and called the doctor (toothache, ingrown toenail, back pain)

The Er is obligated to see life and limb threatening emergencies 1st.

Here are some tips:

DO NOT call ahead and ask the "wait time." There is no way to know. You may be the only person there, and a multiple car accident comes in, you get bumped

Legally the nurse CANNOT advise you to go elsewhere. This is a violation of EMTALA. The hospital can be heavily fined for this.

If the illness/injury is not life threatening call your primary care physician/ped/obgyn 1st. Often times they will meet you 1st thing in the morning in the office.

There is no other "on call" doctor to call. Emergency physicians work scheduled shifts, they are not on call.

The triage nurse is busy and has no control over the wait time. Please stop nagging/verbally abusing him/her about the wait time. The more often you come to the window and distract him/her about waiting, the more you slow down the process.

You primary care doctor may have said you will be "taken right in" he/she doesn't know this and cannot make that decision.

Riding in on the ambulance does not mean you wil "be taken right back" people call 911 for all sorts of ridicluousness. (toohache, sore throat, foot fungus, STD, to name a few that I have seen)

Please, please, please do not call 911 if it is not a life threatening emergency. Please! Just imagine if your loved one is having a heart attack, or has been seriously injured and there is no amulance/EMS for them because they are busy transporting someone with a toothache to the hospital.

Remember nurses work hard for approximately 1/3 of the physicians salary. They are rarely, if ever recognized for the work that they do. Mostly the doctor is given the all the credit. There is a nation-wide nursing shortage that will only get worse within the next decade.

 

[roliepolieoliefan]

*donning flame retardent gear*

I am an ER nurse, and, yes, sometimes the waits are up to 6-8 hours. I will explain to you why.

Patients are triaged on urgency level.
Priority Level #1 is a patient actively being recusitated (cpr in progress)

Priority level #2 are patients with a life or limb threatening illness that need to be seen ASAP (chest pain with ekg changes, stroke symptoms, respiratory difficulty with low oxygen levels, amputations, gunshots, stabbings)

Priority level #3 are patients that are patients that need to be seen and treated, but are stable enough to wait (pneumonia symptoms, asthma with lowish oxygen levels, fractures)

Priority level #4 are non urgent injuries/illnesses that need treatment without the possibility of being life threatening and probably could have been seen at urgi care (stitches, minor burns, strep throats, kids with fevers)

Priority level #5 are the ones that should have stayed home and called the doctor (toothache, ingrown toenail, back pain)

The Er is obligated to see life and limb threatening emergencies 1st.

Here are some tips:

DO NOT call ahead and ask the "wait time." There is no way to know. You may be the only person there, and a multiple car accident comes in, you get bumped

Legally the nurse CANNOT advise you to go elsewhere. This is a violation of EMTALA. The hospital can be heavily fined for this.

If the illness/injury is not life threatening call your primary care physician/ped/obgyn 1st. Often times they will meet you 1st thing in the morning in the office.

There is no other "on call" doctor to call. Emergency physicians work scheduled shifts, they are not on call.

The triage nurse is busy and has no control over the wait time. Please stop nagging/verbally abusing him/her about the wait time. The more often you come to the window and distract him/her about waiting, the more you slow down the process.

You primary care doctor may have said you will be "taken right in" he/she doesn't know this and cannot make that decision.

Riding in on the ambulance does not mean you wil "be taken right back" people call 911 for all sorts of ridicluousness. (toohache, sore throat, foot fungus, STD, to name a few that I have seen)

Please, please, please do not call 911 if it is not a life threatening emergency. Please! Just imagine if your loved one is having a heart attack, or has been seriously injured and there is no amulance/EMS for them because they are busy transporting someone with a toothache to the hospital.

Remember nurses work hard for approximately 1/3 of the physicians salary. They are rarely, if ever recognized for the work that they do. Mostly the doctor is given the all the credit. There is a nation-wide nursing shortage that will only get worse within the next decade.

No flames here . I am also a fellow RN who used to work in an OB hospital ER. You would not believe the ridiculous things that would come through that door , and then the whining and verbal abuse if a patient is not treated immediately.

Everything the PP said, is so very true!