Opinion: How can we scale back ER wait instances in Maryland hospitals?

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 latest knowledge from the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies (CMS), Maryland sufferers spend a median (median) time of 228 minutes ready within the ER. The truth is, we’re the one state with a median wait time larger 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 admittedly it’s been happening 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 larger threat to sufferers and poorer well being outcomes. Researchers estimated that lowering 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 antagonistic 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 annoyed sufferers go away ERs with out getting the assistance they want. ER workers who’ve labored lengthy hours beneath anxious circumstances all too usually bear the brunt of frustration from indignant sufferers, bored with prolonged waits and uncertainty about well timed care.

Going to the ER in Maryland has change into 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 scale back ER wait time? Let’s strive to determine how we will enhance our ERs to assist distressed ER sufferers in addition to beleaguered ER medical workers.

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 corresponding to North Dakota. Nonetheless, states with inhabitants sizes similar to Maryland corresponding to Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri all had considerably shorter wait instances.

A examine is required to look at greatest practices in ERs in states that: 1) are comparable in inhabitants dimension to Maryland; 2) have a minimum of one metropolis of roughly 500,000 residents; and three) rank within the prime 50% of states or increased in shortest ER wait time. Parameters that could possibly be examined embrace ER staffing, affected person to caregiver ratios, triage practices, and mattress availability.

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

Sufferers who come to ER are sometimes in determined want of fast assist, typically with life threatening circumstances. With a median wait time of just about 4 hours, sufferers could go away with out remedy, resulting in doubtlessly antagonistic penalties and detrimental well being outcomes. We have to scale back the chance to susceptible sufferers and assist the overburdened ER workers.

Maryland sufferers and ER workers deserve higher.