SOUTH BEND, Ind., June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- So when should the typicalemergency room patient send an SOS? The average length of stay in U.S.emergency rooms in 2005 hit 3 hours and 42 minutes, with Iowans facing theshortest wait time and Arizona residents enduring the longest. Press GaneyAssociates, which measures patient satisfaction at 35 percent of the nation'shospitals, compiled the statistics based on nearly 1.5 million patientquestionnaires filled out last year covering 1,227 emergency departmentsacross the country.
The data reveals wide state-to-state variations in the time between apatient entering a hospital's emergency department and being admitted to thehospital or sent home. The findings are important because the less timepatients wait in the emergency room, the greater their satisfaction with theircare, according to Press Ganey's 2006 Health Care Satisfaction Report. Thereport finds that satisfaction with emergency department waiting timesimproves simply by providing patients with information about any delay atregular intervals. The better informed that patients are, the more satisfiedand understanding they are about the wait.
Still, as emergency room wait times lengthen, a growing number ofhospitals are moving to reduce that time.
"There is hardly a hospital in the country that is not, in some way,focused on wait times in the emergency room," says Melvin Hall , Ph.D., PressGaney's president and chief executive officer. "The longer a patient waits,the more dissatisfied the patient gets. A hospital can soften thatdissatisfaction merely by explaining the reason for the delay or giving anidea when the patient will be treated. In fact, patients with long waits whohave received frequent explanations about delays are more satisfied than thosewith shorter waits who did not receive explanations."
Emergency room patients in Iowa average the shortest wait -- a mere 2hours and 18 minutes, followed by Nebraska (2 hours and 26 minutes) and SouthDakota (2 hours and 29 minutes). Meanwhile, patients in Arizona face anaverage emergency department wait of nearly five hours (4 hours and 57minutes), with Maryland at 4 hours and 7 minutes and Utah at 4 hours and 5minutes.
Dr. Hall said rural Midwestern states fared best in the report becausetheir hospital occupancy rates are lower and they handle fewer emergencypatients. He also explained that metropolitan hospitals treat more emergencyroom patients with routine medical problems, who tend to wait longer for carethan the critically injured.
About Press Ganey Associates Inc.
Founded in 1985, Press Ganey Associates is the health care industry'sleading independent vendor of satisfaction measurement and improvementservices. Headquartered in South Bend, Ind., Press Ganey partners with morethan 7,000 health care facilities and assists them in collecting and usingpatient, resident, physician and employee evaluations in their quality-improvement initiatives. Among U.S. inpatient hospitals, more have selectedPress Ganey than have selected all other vendors combined. Roughly one-thirdcontract with Press Ganey to measure patient satisfaction. This percentageincreases to 43 percent among hospitals with more than 100 beds. For moreinformation on Press Ganey, visit http://www.pressganey.com .
SOURCE Press Ganey Associates
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