TERRE HAUTE —
Terre Haute Regional Hospital not only pledges to keep emergency room wait times to 30 minutes, it’s allowing the public to monitor those wait times.
Regional has implemented three ways for community members and prospective patients to access information on average emergency room wait times:
• Going to www.regional
hospital.com.
• Texting to 23000 and entering the message ER 47802.
• Driving by billboards on U.S. 41 South in front of Walmart or on North Third Street at the overpass.
The “real-time” data will be updated every 40 minutes and is based on the average for the prior three hours. The billboards went “live” on Monday.
“People are very busy, and they have a choice about where they receive health care,” said Brian Bauer, Regional’s chief executive officer. “It’s our goal to provide them with as much information as possible in making that decision.”
On the billboards, Regional is promoting its 30-minute “promise,” which means that “patients can have a reasonable expectation to be seen within 30 minutes of arriving in our emergency department,” Bauer said.
He acknowledges there may be times the hospital can’t fulfill the 30-minute promise. “In the world of health care, you could have 12 patients show up at one time due to a disaster or a major accident. So we’re going to have fallouts,” Bauer said. “But it’s our goal on average for the majority of the time to have our patients see a health care provider within 30 minutes of arriving.”
At 11 a.m. Tuesday, the billboard by Walmart showed an average wait time of 10 minutes. At 2:38 p.m., a text message showed the average wait time was eight minutes.
The average wait time is usually less than 30 minutes, Bauer said. “It’s a good tool for us to monitor our wait time as well.”
Emergency department wait times are a national issue, Bauer said. “It’s a growing problem in some communities.”
As consumers look for more transparency in health care, providing access to emergency room wait times “is another effort by us to be honest with our patients and let them know what to expect when they come to our hospital,” Bauer said.
Sue Loughlin can be reached at (812) 231-4235 or sue.loughlin@tribstar.com.
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