Wait Time at Advocate's ER Triple the National Average

Patients who head to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center for emergency treatment are, on average, waiting to see a doctor three times longer than the national average, the U.S. Government website for Medicare reveals.

The study ranks every hospital on everything from the death rate due to heart attacks to the number of times objects are accidentally left inside someone after surgery.

It shows the average time patients at Advocate spend in the emergency department before being seen by a healthcare professional was 92 minutes. That’s compared to the national average of 30 minutes, 26 minutes at Thorek Memorial Hospital and 9 minutes at St. Joseph Hospital.

Noreen Keeney, Advocate’s director of public affairs and marketing, says the emergency department sees about 120 to 140 people every day. And as Chicago’s only North Side trauma center, sometimes a gunshot wound gets priority over a sprained ankle.

“Obviously those numbers don’t look so hot,” Keeney said. “They’re from the last quarter of last year, and they’re something we look at and track.”

According to the study, two percent of people leave the hospital before seeing anyone at all. The wait time is combined with other inflated numbers, like the average 236 minutes patients spend in the emergency department before going home. The national average is 140 minutes.

Kenney says Advocate is undergoing changes to address the long wait times. The hospital recently added three additional beds to its Fast Track program that quickly addresses minor injuries like sprains, cuts and strep throat. That’s combined with adding additional staff to the department.

And while Advocate may have long wait times in general, it excels elsewhere. For example, patients with a broken bone only wait 39 minutes before receiving medication, compared to the national average of 62.

Although the company is building a new $109 million Center for Advanced Care, Keeney says it’s more of an outpatient facility and won’t have much affect on the emergency department’s performance. 

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