A recent study has brought to light the states with the slowest emergency department response times in the country, with New York and Connecticut both in the top 10.
The study by presettlement legal funding company High Rise Financial analyzed the latest available data from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to discover the median time in each state that patients spent in the emergency department before leaving from the visit, with lower times indicating a more efficient – and effective –emergency care process.
New York, came in fifth – behind Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Delaware – with those in New York spending 202 minutes before departure from the emergency department.
The rest of the top 10 contained other more heavily populated states, with Connecticut in eighth place with a 186-minute median emergency room experience. (New Jersey was sixth; Arizona, seventh; Vermont, ninth; and California 10th.)
Perhaps it’s no surprise that the states with the shortest visits were in less densely populated portions of the Midwest. North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Oklahoma had in order the five shortest median emergency-room visits.
A spokesman for High Rise Financial said: “This data offers a fascinating insight into the varying wait times that patients can expect in an emergency room depending on where they are in the country. Prolonged wait times in emergency departments can have serious consequences for patient outcomes, and the difference in timings is considerable, with some states at the top of the list seeing a median time spent in the ER that is more than double that of the states with the shortest time.”
