ER Wait Times....

While reviewing some of the Emergency/EMS blogs I read, I came across Paul Bond's "Emergency Nursing Today Show" latest post... Public Tracking of ED wait times. This made me think of a site I had seen a while back that was doing sometihng similar....

North Florida ER Wait Times

Middelsex Hospital Wait Times

These are just two examples and apparently there are several more out there.

I find this interesting because my mind looks at this in several different ways.

1) If you are having a "real-emergency" why would wait times mater? If it's life or death, you go straight back and your wait time is essentially non existent. So obviously this marketing of "wait times" is for the non-urgent population and for customers to consider where they could go to be seen quicker.

2) If we are marketing ED wait times to the public, does that mean that inappropriate use of the ED is being encouraged?

3) Shouldn't we be spending more money on injury/accident prevention and community education to help de-emphasize the need to for non-urgent patients to come to the ED?

4) Finally, does it really matter? Is there some patient satisfaction quality trend that is associated with this? As of THIS MOMENT the times on the Middelsex website are: 22min, 0 min, and 9 min for each of their facilities. So I guess the potential customer would want to go to the one that is ZERO minutes so they could be seen immediately (??); but I ask is 22 minutes really that much?

These ongoing trends in Emergency Services towards "customer service" and increased satisfaction are of themselves, okay. It does help the system to strive for excellence, but sometimes I feel that the emphasis is being placed on the wrong areas and right now, much more spending on these websites to "track ER wait times" seems to be not the most appropriate focus for today.