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Emergency Room Analysis

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When injured or ill patients come into the emergency room, they expect their conditions - or "emergencies" - to be treated quickly. However, because it is such a busy place, not every patient can be treated immediately. As a result, patients can end up waiting a long time without even being acknowledged. Emergency room wait times should be decreased because longer wait times result in the worsening of patients' conditions which could result in loss of lives. In September of 2016, I was sent from the doctor's office to the emergency room with a severe pain in my side. I checked into the emergency room, and the first thing they asked me was, "Do you have chest pain?" Because my answer was "no," they told me to sit down in the waiting room. …show more content…

Northwell Health, an emergency and urgent care center, stated, "Because the Emergency Department's triage system prioritizes by medical urgency, actual wait times vary. Patients with the most urgent needs may be seen sooner than the displayed time," (Northwell Health). If a patient comes in not breathing, unconscious, or having a heart attack, it is understandable that they will be treated first. But, as for the other cases, who is to say how serious they are or not? Cases that are not serious to some doctors are more serious to the patients. Take, for example, a patient with an ovarian torsion. While in the eyes of the doctors it is not a serious condition because an ovary is not needed for individual survival, the patient is in an extraordinary amount of pain and wants to be treated. Any person in that kind of pain wants to be treated immediately; they may not be dying, but they are uncomfortable and should get an equal amount of attention. They should not have to wait a very long time because the doctors on call decide it is not emergent. Rendich 3 Though it is understandable that the emergency room is an extremely busy place, efforts should be made to keep the chaos under control and decrease the wait times. If the chaos is decreased, wait times will also decrease, and as a result patients will be seen in a safe amount of time and will be treated before their conditions become unbearable,

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