Don't Believe the Emergency-Room Laments

The latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control 2006 NHAMC Survey of Emergency Departments have been released. They highlight massive reductions in the numbers of emergency rooms, huge rises in attendance and increased waiting times.

But, a look under the hood shows that it's not all bad news.

You may have read about the massive decline in the numbers of Emergency Departments. The report indicates a 4.6% decline from 4,019 in 1996 to 3,833 in 2006.

The report fails to highlight that there was a 3.8% decline from 4,176 between 1995 and 1996, and this decline continued through 1998 -- by which time the damage was done. The actual situation in 2006 represents a welcome increase of 1% in the number of emergency rooms since last year's report.

Again, there are misleading media reports about the 119.2 million visits to ERs in 2006 which represents a 32.1% increase since 1996, large but significantly lower than the widely reported 36% increase. The year on year increase was 3.4%.

The report indicates that the number of visits per 100 of the population has gone from 34.2 in 1996 to 40.5 in 2006, an increase of 18.4%. The upside of this report is that over the past two years, there has been a marked reduction in the rate -- to half that of the average increase over the past 10 years. This increase represents just two patients per day for each ER.

What we do not know is the numbers of physicians and nursing staff attending at these facilities, so it's difficult to make exact comparisons -- but it would be reasonable to guess that staff must be more efficient now than they were in 1996, and handling only one additional patient per hour.