Waiting in the Emergency Room

Hospitals are terrible places of waiting. Nothing is fast, everyone is waiting. It is incredible that they function at the speed they do but there it still is a fundamentally broken system.

Here is what happened tonight:

• Arrived at ER
• Checked in with woman in office
• Waited 1 hour in waiting room
• Moved to small ER room
• Saw doctor briefly enough for him to order labs and x-rays
• Waited 30-45 mins for x-ray
• X-ray took 30-45 mins
• Waited 1 more hour in ER room
• Nurse begins admissions process
• Once a room is assigned transportation will be called…

That is 4.5 hours of waiting and we are not even nearly done with this process. I can only imagine this will take another 1 or 2 hours before he is in a room.

The main blocker I have seen over two weeks in this hospital is transportation. It seems the hospital hires minimally trained employees to shuffle patients around the large hospital complex. It appears to be either severely understaffed at all times or these employees are incredibly ineffecient. Eithe way I can only image it is a problem that could be solved by more money but this sort of work is not easily billable so it gets underfunded.

I hope we all get to go home soon.