Blog
.
Michael Heckman
Heading to the ER? There’s an App for That.
March 3rd, 2011
I recently had an experience all-too-familiar to many of us: rushing a loved one to the emergency room. Upon arrival, we joined dozens of fellow human beings who were bleeding, crying, panicking, and, of course, waiting. We all had one thing in common: the agony of not knowing how long we would wait for our much coveted trip behind the sliding security doors.
We also shared a common pastime: surfing the web on our phone and iPads while we waited. It didn’t take long for us to realize that when it comes to the uncertainty of waiting for the ER, “there’s an app for that.” Well, sort of.
An increasing number of U.S. hospitals have started posting their emergency room wait times online. Several more have followed in the footsteps of the Hospital Corporation of America. HCA has released an iPhone app that enables users to find the emergency room wait times at eight of their North Texas hospitals and one free-standing facility. Taking the concept a step farther, InQuickER is a fee service that enables potential patients to virtually hold a place in line for an ER visit at numerous hospitals in nine states. The service encourages site users to “Hold your place in line, online. Relax at home while you wait.”
These apps and services are expanding the concept of user engagement and making life better for many people. The ER wait time apps and pages also serve as entrance points to hospital websites for many who would not otherwise seek out the home pages. From a pure marketing perspective, they hold the potential to attract potential “customers” (patients with non-life-threatening conditions) and reinforce reputations for responsive patient care.
They also, however, add new meaning to the axiom “a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.” I would have welcomed the opportunity to learn that our wait time would be nearly two hours at the hospital we chose and only 20 minutes at a hospital five miles away. For a non-life-threatening emergency, the information is a convenience. But for a more serious condition requiring immediate attention, deterring a patient from going to the nearest ER could have disastrous consequences.
Someone suffering from a heart attack is likely to be seen immediately, regardless of how long an app says the wait time will be. Apps and sites that deliver ER wait times have the potential to create an unreliable sense of certainty, especially to people in a panic. Relying on a posted wait time may well encourage somebody who thinks he’s having a heart attack to drive an extra ten miles. It might even persuade him to “relax at home” while he waits, squandering precious life-saving time. The solution to this unintended consequence is unlikely to be found in five-page terms of use documents. Nevertheless, more information about the nature of triage and what to do in critical situations on many of these sites/apps would help.
Real triage and human judgment matter. Unfortunately, there’s not an app for that.
.
