In the United States, the average length of an emergency department (ED) visit is 2 hours and 40 minutes. The amount of time these visits take has continued to increase throughout the years, causing concern among patients, healthcare providers, and lawmakers alike. This metric is a significant indicator of hospital performance because increasing visit times demonstrate that a hospital may not be staffed in proportion to the community’s needs or that it may be experiencing other concerns. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Timely and effective care in hospital emergency departments is essential for good patient outcomes. Delays before getting care in the emergency department can reduce the quality of care and increase risks and discomforts for patients with serious illnesses or injuries.”
Connecticut ranks seventh worst in the country for this metric, with an average visit lasting 3 hours and 5 minutes, and EDs that are so crowded that patients end up receiving care in hallways. In response to growing concerns about this distressing dynamic, the state legislature created the Emergency Department Boarding and Crowding Working Group that convened in the fall of 2023 to advise on “methods to alleviate emergency department crowding and the lack of available emergency department beds in the state.” In their January 2024 report, the working group clarified that although there is a “public perception that ED crowding is primarily a result of a large influx of patients with minor or non-emergent complaints,” those visits “are typically managed fairly expediently . . . [and] are not generally the true cause of crowding.” Instead, ED crowding is a result of the fact that patients are being “boarded” in the ED, meaning that patients who need to be admitted inpatient to the hospital are being held in the ED until an inpatient bed becomes available.
To address this, Public Act No. 24-4: An Act Concerning Emergency Department Crowding was signed into law on May 9, 2024. The Act requires private hospitals in Connecticut to analyze annually data from their emergency departments for the next four years, including the average length of an ED visit, and use the analysis “with the goals of (A) developing policies or procedures to reduce wait times for admission to the hospital after a patient presents to the emergency department, (B) informing potential methods to improve admission efficiencies, and (C) examining root causes for delays in admission times.” Moreover, the hospitals must also submit an annual report to the joint standing committee of the General Assembly containing this information and any recommendations for achieving the identified goals.
This legislation is incredibly important, as it is patients who pay the price for ED crowding. Indeed, many patients needlessly suffer in crowded ED waiting rooms from intense, acute pain for substantial periods of time without any pain relief. Moreover, ED crowding results in poorer patient outcomes because it causes increased medical errors, failure to timely diagnose and treat serious conditions, and failure to adhere to guideline-recommended treatment. For instance, ED crowding can result in a higher risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes for patients experiencing chest pain. It can also increase the risk of hospital-acquired infections and the likelihood of patient management errors. ED crowding has even been linked to problems not just in the ED itself but also throughout the hospital. A recent study observed an increase in the number of deaths of patients who are inpatient when EDs are crowded, with researchers speculating that this is due at least in part to crowded EDs causing increased workload for inpatient healthcare providers. Sadly, ED crowding is a global public health crisis that has cost many people their lives and it should be treated with the utmost concern.
If you believe that you or a loved one may have experienced a medical malpractice injury due to ED crowding, you should reach out to an attorney right away. Contact the experienced attorneys at Berkowitz and Hanna, LLC if you have any questions about your legal rights regarding this concern. To schedule a free, no-obligation consultation, call 203-324-7909 or contact us online today.
Berkowitz Hanna
