CDC data indicate ED usage, wait times have increased. NBC Nightly News (8/6, story 7, 2:05, Robach) reported that "New federal research...about the state of this country's hospital" emergency departments (EDs) is "bleak," and "says a lot about bigger problems with our healthcare system."
In a front-page story, the San Francisco Chronicle (8/7, A1, Colliver) reports that "Hospital emergency departments, typically the medical providers of last resort, are becoming the only option for insured, as well as uninsured, people who are unable to get care elsewhere, leading to a record rise in emergency department visits over the past decade," according to a report published by the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Investigators found that "Emergency Department visits jumped more than 32 percent from 90.3 million in 1996, to 119 million in 2006, the most recent year statistics are available." The report's authors note that although "the number of people without health insurance has risen to about 47 million, an increase of more than five million since 1996, neither that increase, nor the overall growth in population, accounted for the overcrowding" of EDs.
Yet, while the number of people using EDs increased, statistics from the American Hospital Association show that "the number of hospital emergency departments dropped to fewer than 4,600, from nearly 4,900," the AP (8/7, Stobbe) adds. And, due to the increased demand, the "amount of time a patient waited before seeing a physician in an" ED has risen "steadily, from 38 minutes in 1997, to 47 minutes in 2004, to 56 minutes in 2006." Lead author Stephen Pitts, M.D., of the CDC, pointed out, however, that "56 minutes may be the average, but it's not typical: The average was skewed to nearly an hour because of some very long waits." He noted that 50 percent "of people had waiting times of 31 minutes or less." Dr. Linda Lawrence, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said, "Millions more people each year are seeking emergency care, but emergency departments are continuing to close, often because so much care goes uncompensated." Dr. Lawrence added, "This report is very troubling, because it shows that care is being delayed for everyone, including people in pain and with heart attacks."
Bloomberg (8/7, Randall) explains that "wait times didn't change much for patients in need of immediate care, such as those suffering from heart attacks, or car accidents." People with the longest wait times typically had "less-urgent reasons." Overall, "about 33 percent of blacks and 17 percent of whites use emergency departments as their first stop."
The report was "based on a national survey of 362 hospital emergency departments," the Salt Lake Tribune (8/7, May) added.
In the Wall Street Journal's (8/6) Health Blog, Jacob Goldstein wrote that "while conventional wisdom suggests that the uninsured are crowding the" EDs, "the data suggest that's not what's going on. The uninsured (comprised in this survey of those who paid themselves, and those who didn't pay) accounted for between 17 percent and 18 percent of" ED "traffic in both 1996...and 2006," respectively. In addition, a "recent study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine noted a similar trend, and found that the biggest rise came from well-off people who typically get their care at a doctor's office."
