CLEVELAND — Northeast Ohio patients are desperate for quicker care. News 5 Investigators uncovered the longest wait times for emergency room departments in our area.
Watch more about what hospitals have the longest wait times:
RELATED: What Northeast Ohio hospitals have the longest ER wait times? We found out
Now, we’re following through with what ERs added the most minutes, more insight on why patients are waiting longer these days and what are some of the proposed solutions.
On Sept. 5th, Tyler Bennett from Akron felt awful.
“I was getting confused. I was feeling sick and I was feeling weak on my left side,” Tyler told us.
A CONCERNING HEART ISSUE
He said he has no history of heart problems so, he went to an urgent care center. Records show his blood pressure was 219/110. That’s very high.
Then, just a couple days later, he had the same issues.
“I just couldn’t breathe. My chest was tight. I could feel it in my neck, in my shoulders,” Bennett said.
His mom Darla Bennett was worried.
“He said he couldn’t even get up out of the bed,” Darla Bennett said.
A PROBLEM IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM
She drove him to the emergency room at Cleveland Clinic’s Akron General. Records show his blood pressure was 175/118.
“Then the lady (working in the ER) said you have something more serious,” Tyler Bennett said.
Cleveland Clinic’s own website shows 175/118 is right on the line of an urgent problem. However, Bennett said he sat in the waiting room another six hours before his vitals were checked again.
“I didn’t see a doctor, nothing like that. They just kept, basically, telling me we’re waiting for beds,” he told us.
Mahshid Abir is the Sr. Physician Policy Researcher at RAND Corporation.
“Hospitals, unfortunately, don’t really prioritize their emergency departments,” she told us.
REASONS FOR LONGER WAIT TIMES
RAND’s recent study on ER departments nationwide shows one reason wait times are up is because of the cases walking through the doors.
“Medical complexity and social complexity so that ERs just have to spend more time taking care of patients,” Abir said.
She also reported Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance payments to hospitals have all gone down.
“And so if you’re not getting paid as much, that is just salt on the wound,” she told us.
On top of all that, there are workforce problems.
“What we saw during the pandemic was a major exodus particularly of nurses from acute care settings like emergency departments,” Abir said.
Data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show since 2019, just before the pandemic, to now, nearly every Northeast Ohio hospital we looked at added minutes to ER wait times.
The data focused on "timely and effective care," measuring the average time from check-in to leaving the ER.
MOST ADDED MINUTES IN LOCAL ER DEPARTMENTS
Cleveland Clinic’s Avon Hospital added the most with 93 more minutes than 2019. University Hospitals’ Ahuja Medical Center in Beachwood came in second with plus-77 minutes, and the Clinic’s Fairview Hospital gained 76 additional minutes.
“It’s a serious problem for everybody not just me,” said Tyler.
The chart below shows the increase in wait times for hospitals across Northeast Ohio:
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO LONGER WAIT TIMES
Abir said to solve these problems, ERs need more money with perhaps higher Medicaid payouts, more payments from employers for healthcare, and governments chipping in.
“To use local funds similar to what police and fire get for emergency care,” Abir said.
Neither UH nor Cleveland Clinic answered questions on camera. Both wrote they’ve opened urgent care centers to provide options for people who don’t need ER care.
The Clinic claimed it uses “a more efficient processing system” to get patients through “more quickly.”
Tyler told us even with his highly-elevated blood pressure, he ended up waiting about 10 hours total.
“(ER employees) should suggest (patients) go somewhere else or they should be bringing in more doctors to make sure they can be seen,” said Darla.
'LIKE I WASN'T EVEN A PERSON'
Tyler finally left the ER, went to a different hospital and said he was in and out in 45 minutes unlike his experience at Akron General.
“I just feel like they just plain out forgot me…it’s crazy,” he told us. “Just like I wasn’t even a person. I was just a number on a sheet.”
Tyler said all he needed was a pill to settle his blood pressure down, and then he felt better.
Cleveland Clinic’s Statement:
“Healthcare is facing an increased demand for services. Like many health systems nationwide, Cleveland Clinic’s Emergency Departments sometimes experience longer-than-expected wait times. Those wait times can be impacted by many factors, including patient volumes, the complexity of cases, and the availability of inpatient beds.
We are continuously looking at solutions to maintain the highest quality care while decreasing wait times. This includes:We remain committed to meeting the needs of patients in the communities we serve and ensuring patients receive timely care.”
- Offering patients a variety of ways to receive care [my.clevelandclinic.org], such as urgent, express or emergency care, depending on the severity of symptoms.
- Utilizing remote providers to start assessing and moving patients through the care plan more quickly.
- Using a more efficient processing system that divides patients into different levels of care upon arrival, to get patients to the type of services they need more quickly.
University Hospitals Statement:
“University Hospitals operates a regional network of state-designated trauma centers to meet the needs of patients in Northeast Ohio. We’ve seen a surge in demand for emergency services dating back to the pandemic. Our dedicated doctors, nurses and other staff work around the clock to deliver life-saving care as rapidly as possible. All emergency visits are triaged, so the most urgent cases always go to the front of the line. We work with our EMS, and fire department partners to care for their patients and get them back into service as quickly as possible. We have also opened dozens of urgent cares around the region because not every incident needs to go to the emergency room. We are proud of the compassionate, life-saving care we provide 365 days a year.
UH’s regional trauma network includes seven Level 3 Trauma Centers: UH Elyria, Geauga, Lake West, St. John, Parma and Portage medical centers, as well as Southwest General Health Center. UH Cleveland Medical Center and UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital are designated Level 1 Regional Trauma Centers. UH Rainbow is Cleveland's only Level I trauma center for children and adolescents and has been a continuously verified Level 1 pediatric trauma center by the ACS for 25 years.”
