(WGHP) — Multiple people in the Piedmont Triad have described spending long hours waiting in the emergency room.
State data indicates respiratory infections are on the upswing, but a local emergency physician says there’s more to the story.
It’s not just a local issue. It’s the season for sickness, but another part of the issue is people seeking care at an ER facility instead of their primary care doctor or their local urgent care.
“Legally, our staff is not able to tell patients what the wait times are,” Cone Health Emergency Physician Dr. Brian Miller said.
FOX8 called 10 Triad ERs, including Cone Health, the Atrium Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and Novant Health locations.
Dr. Miller was right. No ER would give us an estimate. Some ERs put a clock on their websites.
“It’s a rolling average over the past four hours for most of those time estimators,” Dr. Miller said.
FOX8 spoke to a man who said he was told the wait time at another hospital was ten hours. A woman also said she only waited half an hour and was rushed into surgery.
Medical professionals decide who goes first through triage.
“We oftentimes have a medical provider who will actually see the patient quickly, do a brief exam and then determine what level of care that person may need,” Dr. Miller said.
That initial exam determines how an ailment or complaint ranks in terms of severity and who receives a bed first.
“If more sick people are coming in, we have to sometimes change people’s priority based on other things that come in,” Dr. Miller said, alluding to emergencies like shootings and heart attacks.
“If a patient is young and healthy and doesn’t have a whole lot of medical problems, even if they feel they’re having a lot of symptoms, much of that can be handled at an urgent care,” Dr. Miller said.
Additionally, most local providers offer telemedicine, which gives patients a chance to speak or write to a licensed provider about their symptoms and treatment quickly.
That step can save a person from getting even sicker.
“If you’re sitting in an emergency room that has a high density with a lot of people, there are going to be a lot of people who have flu, COVID, a lot of illnesses you don’t want to be around,” Dr. Miller said.
Telehealth and urgent care also run cheaper than ER visits.
