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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Hospitals Post Emergency Room Wait Times

If you’ve ever had to visit a hospital’s emergency department, you know that waiting to be seen can take a few minutes or several hours, depending on any number of factors. Imagine if you could simply check a hospital’s website to find out the wait time. Many hospitals nationwide are posting hospital wait times online — and some even have online check-in — in an effort to increase patient traffic and manage patient flow. They are hoping these technology improvements will help patients to make better time-sensitive decisions and convince them to choose their hospital over others that do not offer such services. Of the 19 hospitals in the greater San Fernando Valley region, only four currently post ER wait times online: Mission Community Hospital in Panorama City, Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, West Hills Hospital and Medical Center in West Hills, and Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale. More Valley area hospitals should consider offering this service, as those that have made the technology investment say it has improved hospital operations. Mission Community Hospital began posting its wait times in March. Since then, the hospital has seen a 10 to 15 percent increase in emergency room patients, said Jack Lahidjani, president of Deanco Healthcare LLC, the management firm for 145-bed hospital. “We wanted to differentiate our emergency room from others in the area,” Lahidjani said. The online initiative was aimed at increasing patient traffic at the hospital and raising the facility’s profile in the San Fernando Valley, especially among patients with insurance, he added. “For every 100 people that come to the emergency room you estimate one to two people will be admitted,” Lahidjani said. “It can be substantial to the bottom line of a hospital. We are sensitive to the time in the ER area. Most insured patients don’t want to wait three or four hours and they have access to the Internet and want to avoid a loud room.” In 2011, MCH had 17,739 reported emergency room encounters, according to the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. Of those, 4,781 resulted in an admission at the same hospital. MCH, founded in 1974, is financially challenged and working to recover quickly. Deanco Healthcare began managing the hospital in 2010 in a three year, multi-step bid to purchase the hospital for $37.8 million. In addition to reducing ER wait times, the hospital has taken several steps to raise patient volume and shift the payer mix, pulling in more commercial payers and reducing the hospital’s reliance on government programs, which has historically accounted for almost 90 percent of MCH revenues. MCH’s Chief of Information Technology Operations, Dustin Fennell, did the bulk of the work on the wait times over a one-month timespan. The hospital also enlisted a consultant, Dipak Reddy, senior IT analyst for VNET IT Inc. in Sherman Oaks. The cost of the project was between $25,000 and $50,000 for development and programming, Lahidjani said. Wait times are calculated differently at each hospital, as there is no national standard. At MCH, Fennell said he created an automated process that pulls electronic health record data every 15 minutes and averages the wait time for the previous hour. While MCH is the latest Valley hospital to post its wait times online, others have been doing it for years and attest to the improvements it has had on operations. West Hills Hospital and Medical Center’s President and CEO Beverly Gilmore said the hospital started posting emergency room wait times online about a year ago. “Efficiency in the ER and making sure people are seen quickly is a big focus for us,” Gilmore said. “Having electronic ways to keep people informed — it’s improved wait times.” Kevin Kurtz, director of ER/ICU at Verdugo Hills Hospital, said the facility started posting emergency room wait times online about two years ago in response a high volume of phone calls from patients inquiring about wait times. The calls were disruptive as sometimes they would come to ER nurses who were busy treating patients, he said. “For us, it (posting wait times) is convenient for patients, as well as staff.” Indeed, it is surprising that more Valley area hospitals have not upgraded their websites with emergency room wait time information, given the relatively modest IT investment. One wonders whether hospitals are concerned about publishing long wait times and the impact that could have on their business. While such concerns may be valid, providing wait time information online is a great service to patients. And if the success at other area hospitals is any indication, the service would surely help hospitals further improve operations, dovetailing with many of their ongoing efforts to provide better managed care for patients.

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