Fighting the clock: ER wait times in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH — Every second counts when there's an emergency. And new research shows you're spending a lot of time waiting in an emergency room to see a doctor. The national average is a 133 minute wait.

Channel 11's Katherine Amenta found out how our local hospitals fare and what they're doing to treat you quicker.

“We want to take away that feeling of dread…why should a patient wait,” said Dr. Bruce MacLeod, a medical director in the Allegheny Health Network.

But when emergency rooms have to see between 30 to 70 thousand patients every year, the clock becomes a factor.

“You want to see a physician. You want to get your diagnosis; you want to go about your business,” said MacLeod.

That's the goal, but the Allegheny Health Network admits they have some work to do. According to medicare.gov, from April of 2013 to March of last year, Forbes Hospital had the longest wait time in Western, PA at 177 minutes -- that's almost 3 hours. Allegheny General was 174 minutes. The best performing ER was UPMC Mercy, which matched the state average of 126 minutes -- or just over 2 hours.

It was based on the “average time patients spent in the Emergency Department before being sent home.”

Dr. Michael Turturro is Chief of Emergency Services at Mercy. He says success starts the minute a patient walks through the door.

“The bottom line is, we pull people into the emergency department when they arrive and put them into treatment space immediately,” said Turturro.

Then, it's an efficient cycle of "see the patient", "diagnose the patient", and either "treat and discharge" or "admit" them.

“What you need is a hospital commitment to getting patients out of the ER and into an in-patient bed,” said Turturro,

So, what about ERs like AGH that logged wait times close to 3 hours?

“It fills up quickly,” said MacLeod.

That's because AGH is a quaternary center, which means they take in some of the most serious and specialized cases in the region.

But MacLeod says he will never use the excuse that there are too many people are coming in with so-called "non-emergencies."

“The definition of emergency is something very personal…what you feel is a risk,” said MacLeod.

MacLeod adds they are making improvements, which include posting a doctor by the waiting room on busy days to evaluate patients right away. He says their wait times are already dropping.

Since the last Medicare report, Dr. MacLeod says AGH has dropped their wait time from 174 to 144. And, their ultimate goal is to eventually have it down to the national best of 90 minutes.

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