With emergency rooms at full capacity, get ready for longer hospital waits
If you need emergency care, be prepared for possible longer waits. Even with the pandemic winding down, emergency departments are often at full capacity around the clock.
Working at peak volume is nothing new for the emergency department staff at UNC Rex Healthcare. Normally, E.D. staff expect higher patient load during certain months or late night hours.
Emergency physician Dr. Ryan Lamb says it has become an around-the-clock demand.
"On a regular basis, to have it bursting at the seams is what we would say is challenging," he said.
It’s a challenge for their staff as well as individuals and families who depend on them, says UNC Rex Healthcare chief nursing officer Joel Ray.
He said, "There are a number of factors that are contributing to that. First and foremost, I think, we continue to be in a Triangle that has a lot of rapid growth".
He says their E.D. sees many patients who delayed dealing with health care issues during the pandemic, so they arrive sicker than usual.
That includes people with or at higher risk for cancer.
Ray said, "We are seeing and hearing that as many as 80% reduction in cancer screening over the past year and a half."
As a result, he says, more patients require longer length of stays in a hospital. At the same time, they are dealing with more behavioral health patients and without the number of psychiatric beds required to accommodate them.
Also, Ray says, they rely on skilled nursing and rehab facilities which have space challenges of their own as well as difficulty maintaining proper staff levels.
Lamb says they have had to find short term solutions.
"We have created beds where there weren’t beds before," he said.
In the entry way of the emergency department, there are several privacy areas for patients to sit. In the same area, a nursing station was created where there was not one before.
Removing a bed or stretcher allows room for 8 patient chairs for vertical care.
One room was converted for another important need. Lamb said, "This is an office that we had to take the people out of so that we could turn it into a waiting room for patients with possible COVID-19."
Joel Ray says regular primary care visits and urgent care options could go a long way in relieving regular high patient volumes. However, he said, they never want to discourage those with real needs from coming.
"If it’s a matter of life or limb, our emergency room is right where you need to be for care," said Ray.
Call 911 instead of driving yourself to an emergency room
He recommends people dealing with a health emergency call 911 rather than finding their own way to the hospital.
"That treatment begins enroute, which is always better for each and every patient," said Ray.
He says all the hospitals communicate with each other and with EMS colleagues to better manage overcrowding in any of their facilities.
"I think that despite the frustrations and despite the long stays that people are having, we are still providing excellent care," Lamb said.
UNC recently opened a new pediatric emergency care center across from their main campus in Raleigh. They also plan to open their new emergency department in Holly Springs sometime this fall.
