Researchers Evaluate the Effect of the Emergency Department Wait on Patient Satisfaction

In the Wall Street Journal Health Blog (read full article here) (10/30), Jacob Goldstein asked "how long is too long?" when it comes to the willingness of patients to happily ride out the emergency department (ED) wait. Researchers at Michigan's William Beaumont Hospital posed the same question, "and got a pretty clear answer: Three and a half hours." After looking "at more than 2,000 patient-satisfaction surveys from the first part of the 2007, "the investigators discovered that "patients whose stays in the" ED " lasted up to there and a half hours had satisfaction scores in the 83rd percentile as compared with patients at comparable" ED's "around the country." For patients "who spent between three and a half and four hours," however, "satisfaction plunged to the 49th percentile," while spending more than four hours waiting pushed that score into the 24th percentile.

Yet, according to a second Health Blog posted by Goldstein in Wall Street Journal (read full article here)(10/30), the researchers found that telling patients that "the wait is a little longer than it's really likely to be" may ironically cause "patients [to] feel better about their trip through the' trauma ward. The researchers "calculated the mean time it took to get through the" ED "for a given test of procedure -- then added 20 percent when they told patients what to expect." Through "a standard patient satisfaction survey," the team discovered that "all nine variables related to wait times improved after the" ED "adopted this policy," according to data presented during a meeting of "the American College of Emergency Physicians meeting." Asked if the practice was ethical, lead investigator Russell Rae, M.D., said that by "providing people with the exact mean time, half of the time we'd be underestimating how long it's going to take." Now, "there are signs up on the" ED "walls that tell patients how long they can expect to wait for various procedures," some "20 percent above the mean."