Wait times at the ER
Recently I had my second visit to the ER. It was a lot longer than the first one and a bit more unpleasant, even though the hospital building and the treatment processes appear to have been improved since then. While I waiting there for five hours, with brief breaks to talk to doctors and get tests done, I had a lot of time to observe who else was there and think about the ER system.
The ER, as the name suggests, is for emergencies. Yet somebody came there claiming to have a broken arm for four days. Why did they wait for four days? Were they hoping the pain would just go away? Another person came and complained about something that had been bothering them for 14 days. One of the doctors there told them that they'll take a look at them, but they don't have the right equipment for the issue at hand.
Because it's free for everyone (even unemployed or uninsured people), many people come here to get their health issues fixed. On one hand, you do want the emergency service to be free, because getting some of these things addressed quickly saves lives. And it can save even money in the long run, because if you address something quickly, it's easier to fix. On the other hand, it leads to misuses (and sometimes even abuses) of the system. It's sometimes more convenient to go to the ER than through the regular healthcare flow, like in the above cases.
And while I went to the ER because I had low oxygen saturation, I have to admit it got me some results much faster than otherwise. I needed to get a lung CT, to be seen by a pneumologist and to get several blood tests done. I'm still doing the followups with pneumologists two weeks in, and it's always several days between things going forward.
I wonder if this will lead to ever increasing wait times in the future or if this will find an equilibrium somewhere, because the longer wait times will eventually discourage some people from going to the ER. I'm sure they will explore many solutions to make the process more efficient (including adopting AI technology), but will it be enough to counter the other force of "convenience" making more and more people go to the ER?
Why did I write this post? Well, I've recently finished Writing to Learn by William Zinsser, which my dear wife bought me, and I was really impressed by it. William is a great writer, and he makes a very convincing point that writing can make our thinking better. I have many thoughts swirling around in my head, most of them half baked, and when I try to tell them to others, they don't come out right. I feel that I haven't managed to communicate what I wanted to, but I don't know how to word it. So, I've decided to put more of those thoughts on paper, where I can revise them and clarify them. And, true to point, the conclusion of the first half of the post was completely revised after I wrote it.
