One result, they say, is overcrowding in the nation's emergency rooms. The emergency room doctor was amusing his peers, sprinkling jokes into his conference presentation about the chaotic realities of hospital medicine. About 15 of 70 raised their hands. Taylor, surveying the room, was not surprised. Between 1988 and 1998, annual visits to U.S. emergency rooms increased from 81 million to more than 100 million, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
Emergency rooms are jammed, with patients sometimes forced to wait six hours or more.
Diversions, requested by hospitals and approved by local officials who oversee ambulance operations, can endure for an hour or two, for most of a day, or sometimes for several days. But no matter where they go, patients are commonly assigned medical personnel too busy to provide the best care. I feel like I can't do well for the next person. You really don't know what's going on in the waiting room. The emergency medicine society, based in Lansing, Mich., is a 5,500-member professional group for emergency room doctors and nurses who practice, do research and teach at university hospitals.