Jan 15, 2008 11:43 am US/Eastern
Study: ER Wait Times Reach Dangerous High
Waits Increase 150% For Heart Attack Patients
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
The amount of time patients must wait for emergency care is reaching a dangerous high, according to a recently released report.
The study published by the Journal Health Affairs Tuesday, says waits times for patients in emergency rooms are getting longer each year, and include all demographic groups, including those with and without health insurance and patients from all racial and ethnic groups.
The study, conducted by Harvard Medical School researchers at
Cambridge Health Alliance, analyzed the time between patients' arrivals in the ER and when they were first seen by a doctor from 1997 to 2004.
It found that waits increased 36 percent for all patients from an average of 22 minutes to 30 minutes. However, the study found that waits increased by 40 percent, from 10 minutes to 14 minutes, for those who were classified as needing immediate attention.
Waits also increased largely for emergency patients suffering heart attacks. In 1997, the average heart attack patient waited eight minutes. By 2004, that wait time increased by 150 percent to 20 minutes.
According to the study, a quarter of heart attack victims in 2004 waited 50 minutes or more before seeing a doctor. Because chances of surviving a heart attack are known to worsen when treatment is delayed, researchers say this lengthening delay for care of heart attacks is reaching a dangerous high.
The study is the first detailed analysis of national trends in emergency department waits. Researchers used data from the
National Center for Health Statistics and analyzed over 90,000 ER visits nationwide.
According to its findings, while all demographic groups experienced longer ER wait times, waits were slightly longer for blacks and Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites. Women waited about 5.6 percent longer than men, while rural hospitals' patients had the shortest waits.
One factor that may have contributed to the increased wait time is that the number of ER visits increased from 93.4 million in 1994 to 110.2 million in 2004. However, the
American Hospital Association reports that the number of hospitals operating 24-hour ERs decreased by 12 percent between 1994 and 2007.
"Emergency departments close because, in our current payment system, emergency patients are money-losers for hospitals," said lead author of the study, Dr. Andrew Wilper. "Planned admissions of elective patients who need procedures are usually more lucrative for two reasons. First, elective patients can be scheduled more conveniently and efficiently, and second, they can be pre-screened for health insurance. Our study suggests that these perverse incentives are causing dangerous delays in potentially life-saving emergency care, even for those with insurance."
The study's authors also said a contributing factor to ER crowding is Americans' poor access to primary and preventative care, which could address medical issues before they become emergencies.
Researches explained that their study showed a heart attack victim has a 1-in-4 chance of waiting over 50 minutes because of ER overcrowding.
Read the entire study here.
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