Emergency rooms are doing what they can to improve wait times, but most factors are out of their control.
“I think it?s because of the unavailability of private care services,” said Gregory Schaffer, president of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. “Physicians are just not as available as they used to be, so people end up using the emergency department.”
A study by the University of Maryland, Baltimore, cited a growing population, increased demand for acute care, fewer inpatient psychiatric beds, and a shortage of nurses and on-call specialists in a report earlier this year.
The Maryland Health Care Commission?s January 2007 report “Use of Maryland Hospital Emergency Departments: An Update and Recommended Strategies to Address Crowding” reported a 5.7 percent increase in emergency department visits for mental health conditions between 2002 and 2005.
According to a report by the nonprofit Press Ganey Associates, released in June, Maryland tops the national average four-hour wait time for emergency services by more than 30 minutes. Around the region, hospitals are doing what they can.
Baltimore Washington Medical Center implemented a proprietary emergency department patient flow program including costly changes to existing space in order to facilitate patient registration, screening and treatment. St. Joseph Medical Center implemented a “Triage Bypass System” to streamline the emergency department patient intake process to decrease bottlenecks.
