Opinion: How can we reduce ER wait times in Maryland hospitals? – Maryland Matters

By Anna C. Palmisano

The author is director of Marylanders for Affected person Rights.

In 2022, Maryland was decided to have the longest Emergency Room wait time in all 50 states. Maryland has sustained this low rating since 2015 — years earlier than the COVID pandemic started.

In response to current information from the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers (CMS), Maryland sufferers spend a mean (median) time of 228 minutes ready within the ER. In actual fact, we’re the one state with a mean wait time higher than 200 minutes. Responding to the low rating, Bob Atlas, president and CEO of the Maryland Hospital Affiliation, was quoted in an interview final February with WMAR as saying “It’s regarding and albeit it’s been occurring some time.”

Longer wait instances are greater than an inconvenience for emergency room sufferers. In response to a 2011 article by the British Medical Journal, longer wait instances can result in higher threat to sufferers and poorer well being outcomes. Researchers estimated that decreasing wait instances by even an hour would have decreased deaths in decrease threat sufferers by 12.7%. Lengthy emergency wait instances have been linked to elevated threat of hostile occasions (hospitalization or dying inside seven days) amongst non-admitted sufferers.

Extreme wait instances can act as a barrier to entry to well being care, as pissed off sufferers go away ERs with out getting the assistance they want. ER employees who’ve labored lengthy hours beneath worrying situations all too typically bear the brunt of frustration from offended sufferers, uninterested in prolonged waits and uncertainty about well timed care.

Going to the ER in Maryland has grow to be an endurance contest, with some sufferers reporting wait instances of over 24 hours. It’s time to cease shrugging our collective shoulders and ask: How can we cut back ER wait time? Let’s strive to determine how we are able to enhance our ERs to assist distressed ER sufferers in addition to beleaguered ER medical employees.

What can we be taught from different states with shorter ER wait instances?

Not surprisingly, the shortest wait instances reported by CMS have been related to rural states resembling North Dakota. Nonetheless, states with inhabitants sizes corresponding to Maryland resembling Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri all had considerably shorter wait instances.

A examine is required to look at finest practices in ERs in states that: 1) are comparable in inhabitants measurement to Maryland; 2) have no less than one metropolis of roughly 500,000 residents; and three) rank within the prime 50% of states or larger in shortest ER wait time. Parameters that might be examined embody ER staffing, affected person to caregiver ratios, triage practices, and mattress availability.

To conduct the examine, a activity drive must be empaneled by the Maryland Basic Meeting which would come with state legislators, affected person advocates and consultants in emergency drugs. The outcomes of the examine could be suggestions for enhancements to ER practices in Maryland to assist cut back present wait instances.

Sufferers who come to ER are sometimes in determined want of speedy assist, generally with life threatening situations. With a mean wait time of virtually 4 hours, sufferers could go away with out remedy, resulting in probably hostile penalties and damaging well being outcomes. We have to cut back the chance to weak sufferers and assist the overburdened ER employees.

Maryland sufferers and ER employees deserve higher.