Is there a way to find the average ED waiting time

[Medikit]

I'm interested in finding the average Emergency department wait times for the Emergency rooms at various hospitals in Jacksonville, Florida. Is there any centralized location where I could find this?

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[EctopicFetus]

no i doubt it. those numbers are kept by the ed administration. You could def ask them but I doubt they will pass that info on to you.

 

[docB]

I don't think you would ever get any useful answers on this. Every hospital I've ever worked at considers this proprietary info. Their concern is that a high average wait time will result in patients not wanting to go there so they are pretty guarded about it. The exceptions are the places with low wait times or one of those "Dominos ED" programs where they promis 30 minutes or less. If you just look at those you'll be biased toward shorter than actual times.

The other question is what time are you asking for? Time to triage, time to room, time to doctor, time to dispo, time to EKG and CT for the MIs and CVAs, all of those are different and really have different meanings about how the ED functions.

Interestingly the hospitals do know these times, especially if they have EMR and/or stroke and chest pain centers. They just don't tell anyone unless it's in their best interest.

 

[deleted109597]

They used to have the average wait time for all the hospitals in my medical school's system on the main page. Never bothered to look it up from outside the hospital to see if they listed it there. Not sure why it was there to begin with. Did they think people who worked there were going to tell family to go to other facilities?

 

[xaelia]

I think a few weeks back, during the little inquisition into Harbor-UCLA, the Board of Supervisors let it be known that the average wait times for the LA County EDs was something like:
USC: 6 hours
Olive View: 8 hours
Harbor-UCLA: 12 hours

 

[pseudoknot]

I wonder how long it will be before this information is required to be made publically available. It wouldn't be as bad as the Zagat ratings for doctors, I think.

 

[moonshade13]

where I am the ceo's try to say they want wait times to be 30 min but I have been in the ED and I think the shortest is 2 hours and the longest is 12 for me. Now I do not care how long it takes if I'm in the ED it is because it is an emergency not just the cold and I do not mind waiting.