Lilly, O'Toole & Brown Blog

Medical Malpractice

1/21/2008
Brian
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Wait Times Increasing in Emergency Rooms

A study in the January 15, 2008 edition of the Health Affairs journal reports that adult wait times in emergency rooms rose to about a half an hour in 2004, up from 22 minutes in 1997.

Waiting times are worse for black, hispanic, and urban patients, who can expect to wait an average of 7-9 minutes longer for treatment than white patients. Women can also expect to wait about 5% longer than men for treatment.

Even heart-attack patients are averaging longer stays in the waiting room. In 2004, the average wait for a heart-attack patient was 20 minutes, up from 8 minutes in 1997.

But the fact that a 20 minute wait is "average" means that half the patients were waiting for treatment longer than 20 minutes. In fact, a quarter of all heart attack patients in 2004 waited up to 50 minutes or longer to see a doctor. This is particularly disheartening because the likelihood of surviving a heart attack plummets as wait times increase.

The full text of the Health Affairs article can be read here.

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