Iowa Has Shortest Average Emergency Department Wait For Treatment, Study Finds

July 2, 2007 – 2:34 pm | posted in Primary Care

Patients at Iowa emergency departments wait the least amount of time to receive care, according to a study published this month by Press Ganey Associates, the AP/Houston Chronicle reports. The national study was based on patient satisfaction measures from 2006. The study found that the wait for ED treatment in Iowa, on average, was two hours and 18 minutes.

The national average wait time for ED treatment was three hours and 42 minutes, according to the study. Nebraska rated second fastest, followed by South Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin. The longest average wait time was in Arizona — four hours and 57 minutes — followed by Maryland, Utah, New York and Florida.

Scott McIntyre, a spokesperson for the Iowa Hospital Association, said that Iowa’s rural setting could be one reason why the state had the shortest ED wait times. He said, “We have a lot of small hospitals that don’t have a lot of emergency room traffic. The pressure on the [EDs] here is not comparable to [EDs] in, say, Los Angeles.”

McIntyre added that more Iowa residents have primary care physicians, regular health care and health insurance compared with residents of other states, which leads to less ED visits. He said, “People get care when they need it, and they get good primary care that keeps them from getting too sick or not having the job done.”

Melvin Hall, president and CEO of Press Ganey, said that hospitals with longer average wait times should tell patients about how long they can expect to wait because it will help patients better cope with the situation.

Andrew Nugent, clinical director of University Hospitals’ Emergency Treatment Center in Iowa City noted that the success of an ED cannot solely be based on average wait times. He said, “That’s kind of misleading, because some visits take 15 minutes and some are more complicated and take a few hours” (AP/Houston Chronicle, 6/26).

“Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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