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Average Length of Stay in IASIS Healthcare’s Arizona Emergency Departments are Significantly Better than the State Average
ER Wait Times Available online at: www.arizonaer.com
MARCH 31, 2009 – PHOENIX, ARIZ. – More often than not, a patient’s chief complaint in the emergency room isn’t about the illness or injury. It’s about the time it takes to be seen and treated. When facing a medical crisis, long waits can seem unbearable.
Press Ganey, a leading national provider of patient satisfaction data, recently released its 2008 Emergency Department Pulse Report showing the average total time spent by patients in U.S. emergency rooms is now 4 hours and 5 minutes. Arizona ranked 48th in the nation with an even longer average length of stay of 5 hours and 15 minutes. (Average length of stay is the time a patient enters the ER until the time they leave the ER.)
At IASIS Healthcare’s Arizona Emergency Departments, the average length of stay is much better:
- St. Luke’s Medical Center: 2 hours, 15 minutes
- Tempe St. Luke’s Medical Center: 2 hours, 28 minutes
- Mountain Vista Medical Center: 2 hours, 28 minutes
With innovations in patient care, including bedside registration, fast track care for less serious illnesses and injuries, and electronic medical records, IASIS hospitals are committed to providing the prompt care patients expect in a medical emergency.
“As soon as a patient walks in the door, the clock starts ticking,” says Janet Backers, Emergency Department Director at St. Luke’s Medical Center. “No one wants to be kept waiting when they are sick, hurt or trying to take care of a child who needs medical attention.”
The American Medical Association estimates that 90 percent of the nation’s Emergency Rooms are at or above capacity. And that estimate is expected to rise, not fall.
In an effort to offer people real-time information regarding the wait time in its emergency rooms, IASIS has launched www.arizonaer.com. Updated every two minutes, the site provides the community with the wait time in each hospital’s emergency room. In addition, visitors to the Web site can take a virtual tour of each hospital’s emergency room, all of which are equipped with advanced technology.
Adopting systems and protocols to improve emergency room efficiency is essential to moving patients through the system, delivering high-quality care and to achieving greater patient satisfaction.
IASIS Healthcare’s hospitals offer bedside registration enabling patients to move directly from triage to an exam and treatment room. With mobile computers, admitting clerks can collect all of the necessary information right in the patient’s room, while doctors and nurses begin to care for the patient.
IASIS has also transitioned its Arizona hospitals to electronic health records. Computerized charting improves efficiency and increases patient safety. When patients who were previously treated at an IASIS hospital come back to the ER, their medical records are available at the click of a computer button, giving caregivers instant access to the patient’s medical history and saving the precious moments it would normally take to manually retrieve previous medical charts.
IASIS Hospitals also offer fast-track stations during peak times in the ER. The fast-track is reserved for less critical illnesses and injuries. By seeing these patients in the fast-track area, other beds in the Emergency Department remain open and available for people with more serious emergency conditions.
“Most patients in the emergency room are not facing a life-threatening condition,” said Backers. “ But most of our patients are in pain and they feel sick or frightened. They expect us to act with a sense of urgency, and we do. Providing prompt care is vital to patient satisfaction and it helps us keep our emergency room open and ready for the most serious cases.”
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