Emergency Room Crowding in Hospitals Reach Crisis Levels, Compromising Patient CareIn a pair of September studies, Yale researchers found that emergency department crowding has been reaching crisis levels, compromising patient safety and access to care.
Between the start of 2017 and the end of 2021, the median rate of patients who left the emergency department (ED) without being seen by a clinician had doubled from 1.1 percent to 2.1 percent. Among the worst-performing hospitals, one in ten (10 percent) of ED patients left before a medical evaluation at the end of 2021, compared to 4.4 percent in January 2020, and 4.3 percent at the beginning of 2017.
“It’s a measure of access to care,” said Alexander Janke, one of the leading researchers for both studies. “If you have to wait hours and hours to be evaluated in the ED, then that’s not the access to care that we have required by law in [the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA].” ...
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