How Long is an ER Wait at St. Luke's and Mercy Medical Center? Feds Spill the Beans

If you go to the emergency room at St. Luke's Hospital with a broken bone, how long will it take before you get pain medicine? 

The federal government says 46 minutes on average.

Do you think that is a shorter or longer wait than at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids?

It's shorter, but just a touch. You can expect to wait 50 minutes on average for pain meds at Mercy, and both are well below the national average, which is 62 minutes, according to a new database causing some hospital officials nationwide to cringe.

Mercy and St. Luke's are right around the average for hospitals across Iowa - 47 minutes.

Key measures of ER efficiency have been posted from hospitals taking part across the country, according to a report by Cheryl Clark, a senior quality editor for HealthLeaders Media.

“With precious little fanfare, Uncle Sam last month rolled out a big, fat database with seven measures comparing a service that many people—healthcare providers and patients alike—consider the most critical any hospital can provide,” Clark wrote Thursday.

In the Linn County, wait times favor one hospital or the other, depending on the situation. For example, from the time you arrive at the emergency room at St. Luke's you are more likely to wait less to see a healthcare professional - 17 minutes - compared to 22 minutes at Mercy. The national average is 30 minutes, and the Iowa average is 21 minutes.

On the other hand, you will wait less time in the emergency room at Mercy before getting admitted to the hospital as an inpatient - 204 minutes on average. You'll wait 240 minutes at St. Luke's, on average. The Iowa average is 198 minutes, and the national average is 277 minutes.

Data collected in early 2012 also tracked how long it took for an ER patient to be seen by a healthcare professional and how long the wait was to get a bed if they needed admission. Other data showed how long patients spent in the ER before being sent home and whether they received a brain scan if they might have suffered a stroke.

Clark interviewed Dr. Jesse Pines, an emergency room doctor and researcher who directs the center for healthcare quality at George Washington University.

“The theory is that when hospitals report this information, it makes them focus on it, and improve throughout their [Emergency Department],” Pines was quoted as saying.

“But it’s very hard to do. Certain performance measures are easier to fix—like simple process measures like giving patients an aspirin—than improving ED throughput, which involves development of interdisciplinary teams.”

Pines told Clark the public focus good pushes hospital administrators to focus on the emergency room as well as other metrics.

In a column, Clark said she thought the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would “make a bigger fuss about such a major release.”

She added:

Certainly with so much concern about ED overcrowding, and the number of patients being boarded in hospital hallways and even closets, coughing on each other and getting sicker as they wait, a three-month picture of the state of an ED’s throughput  speed should be a very big deal.

But after a few conversations with emergency care experts who know how to read between the lines of this 29,664-record database, I started to realize how raw and flawed this effort still is.

She said a “bizarre glitch” by the Georgia Hospital Association showed wait times for 170 Georgia emergency rooms as “hopelessly inflated.”

Using the national database, residents can compare the ER care at either hospital with any two other local hospitals.

First go to the Hospital Compare website. Then type in your ZIP code, city or local hospital. When a list of hospitals is displayed, put a check mark next to two or three hospitals.

Scroll down to a yellow button labeled Compare Now, and click to display more details. Look for a tab called Timely and Effective Care and click that.

Finally, scroll down to a section called Timely Emergency Department Care. A green button allows you to “View More Details."

Were you surprised by any of the stats displayed?  Tell us in the comments.