Emergency Room Wait Times (Dallas, Richardson: home, live, centers)

[Otterhound]

I decided to research this after an acquaintance suffered a 6-hour wait at Baylor. If the below link is to be believed, the wait is now longer at Baylor than at Parkland! That really surprised me.

Medical City appears to be the best bet within the Dallas city limits.

Emergency Room Wait Times for Hospitals near 75001

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by Otterhound

I decided to research this after an acquaintance suffered a 6-hour wait at Baylor. If the below link is to be believed, the wait is now longer at Baylor than at Parkland! That really surprised me.

Medical City appears to be the best bet within the Dallas city limits.

Emergency Room Wait Times for Hospitals near 75001

I don't know what your fiend's issue was but it must have been relatively minor. Basically all ERs take care of those suffering the most or in the most peril first. At Baylor your friend was almost certainly re-queued over and over as people in worse need kept coming in the same might have happened at Parkland. Parkland also deals with an endless stream of non-compliant, even combative, homeless, near-homeless, drug addicted and other ER resource hogs. Both hospitals deal with lots of drug overdoses, GSWs, beatings, severe car accidents and Parkland with nearly all severe burn cases. I'm going to get this wrong but the theme is correct - last year Parkland had 25 patients account for nearly 750 ER visits.

Medical city deals with far fewer of the super-needy than either Baylor or Parkland.

If you are ever really screwed up hurt, burned, crushed, nearly drowned etc. you want to go to Parkland or Baylor.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

YEah, far too many people use ERs as a doctor's office, screwing up the system. A 6-hr wait indicates he didn't have much of an emergency. Maybe needed some stitches or a cast but nothing life-threatening.

[EDS_]

I found a DMN story about patients abusing Parkland's ER.

1. ~6,200 people used a Parkland ER between 6 and 12 times last year.
2. 800 people used a Parkland ER more than 12 times last year.

That's just a disgusting waste of precious resources.

[ChristieP]

I agree. Waiting 6 hours at the ER means he should have gone to an urgent care clinic (CareNow, Minute Clinic, etc), or just called his primary care doc in the morning, instead of the ER.

[MurphyPl1]

Methodist Richardson is 3rd on the list. I personally ended up in that ER both times (and ended up admitted both times) earlier this summer and those numbers are very accurate. But to other posters' point - there's not a lot of GSW and drug overdoses there. Actually, from what I gather, there's a good chunk that are orthopedic in nature.

[Otterhound]

Originally Posted by EDS_

I don't know what your fiend's issue was but it must have been relatively minor.

It was a pregnant woman with pain and bleeding. Not a trauma case, but not a hangnail, either.

I accept your point about triage but I thought that the balance of the extreme cases wound up at Parkland rather than Baylor.

That said, to me, the lesson from those numbers is that even if you live within walking distance of Baylor, it is in your best interest to best drive to Medical City or the suburbs if you are going to walk in the ER door under your own power rather than on an ambulance stretcher.

[mesmer]

Originally Posted by EDS_

I found a DMN story about patients abusing Parkland's ER.

1. ~6,200 people used a Parkland ER between 6 and 12 times last year.
2. 800 people used a Parkland ER more than 12 times last year.

That's just a disgusting waste of precious resources.

....or they were really sick.

After my grandmother had her stroke and then stabilized, the nursing home would shuttle her over to the ER with some regularity if she got worse in some way. This was not in Texas, however, so I cannot say for sure that's what they do here. But not everybody who uses the ER is a walk in - many come in with an ambulance. We're only going to see more hospital crowding as our population ages.

[LarryTX]

Forgive me but what do people mean when they say "Medical City". Is there one particular hospital in mind ?

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by Otterhound

It was a pregnant woman with pain and bleeding. Not a trauma case, but not a hangnail, either.

I accept your point about triage but I thought that the balance of the extreme cases wound up at Parkland rather than Baylor.

That said, to me, the lesson from those numbers is that even if you live within walking distance of Baylor, it is in your best interest to best drive to Medical City or the suburbs if you are going to walk in the ER door under your own power rather than on an ambulance stretcher.

There's a lot of luck (good or bad) involved. Parkland is one of the several busiest ER centers in the country. On a busy night you'll need to be really sick or hurt or you'll sit for hours. Baylor is less busy but still very busy at times.

I'm sorry your friend got stuck like that those must have been a rough several hours for her.