Many of you have been unlucky to find yourselves in the local Emergency Room for some sort of condition or injury. You probably remember spending what seemed like a LOT of time in the waiting room nursing your ailment before you were taken back to be examined. In fact, that may be your most pervasive memory of the entire visit. Long wait times at emergency rooms are a well-known problem that affects not just patients’ patience. Studies over the years have shown that longer ER wait times have a net negative effect on patient outcomes. So, might the shifting paradigms of care delivery provide better emergency room care?

Longer ER wait times have been associated with increased mortality, longer hospital stays, and increased health care costs. And, as any provider in the ER knows, a large percentage of each days’ patients (as much as 1/3) are for non-emergency visits. Tackling these non-emergency visits, such as by routing the patient through a remote telemedicine visit, could decrease the burden on Emergency Room facilities, and improve outcomes for patients actually in need of emergency care.

You may have read some of our previous blog posts about the increased reliance on telemedicine. Well, it turns out that one incidental benefit of the COVID-19 pandemic, as far as there is any benefit, may be the improved outcomes thanks to use of telemedicine in the ER.

Many patient visits these days are already conducted via telemedicine – you may be “seen” by your provider in the comfort of your own home. Alternatively, prospective ER patients who may be COVID symptomatic are commonly first seen in a separate exam room via tablet – a way for some providers to visit with a patient to perform initial COVID triage while minimizing exposure.  

So, while medicine continues to adjust its approach to telemedicine, it is reasonable to assume that we will see it make adjustments in the emergency room setting to accommodate non-emergency visits. And the benefit should, in turn, be overall improved outcomes for ER patients.