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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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Taking an ambulance to the ER does not ensure that you will be seen faster. A decent chunk of ambulance patients go right out to the lobby to wait like everyone else because everyone is triaged based on their illness or injury, not their mode of transportation.
I mean I've gone to countless common cold and knee-pain gigs during my time as a responder. It's insane from what people call help for and what they think ambulances do. One guy attacked us when we couldn't cure his flu on the spot
17 years ago on a Saturday night, just before bedtime, my 4yo son was being a dufus and managed to break his collarbone. Before we knew it was broken (but knew something was obviously wrong) I took him to the emergency room. We were stuck waiting about 6 hours to be seen. The nurse that triaged us was extremely apologetic and literally stated "I'm so sorry you've had to wait so long, we're stuck having to see the drunken scraped knees first just because they came in an ambulance."
I'm assuming that if my son were bleeding out he would be seen faster, but I've assumed that in non-life threatening situations that ambulances receive priority.
Where was this
Illinois, one of the Chicago suburbs.
United States, medium sized hospital in the Chicago suburbs.
Because I've literally been told that by hospital staff (in Germany). This may vary by country.
Well see ambulance is faster than walking so you advance in the line faster. Makes sense
Wishful thinking? Entitlement? Main character syndrome? Some kind of nonsense.
Isn't this just an expected correlation? Most people who take an ambulance to the E.R. will be seen quicker because most people who are in an ambulance have an emergency so they have a a reason to be seen quicker.
There are a lot of people who call ambulances for inane, non-emergency bullshit. I've seen people come in by ambulance for minor complaints that have been ongoing for months or even years.
Definitely not true.
It's still strikes me as weird seeing billboards with live ER wait times advertised. It seems counterintuitive. And ER is for emergencies. If it's an emergency it doesn't matter what the wait time is. It's not like you're picking and choosing. But clearly people do. And then hospitals advertise their live ER wait times on a billboard, they want people to come to the emergency room now? I just don't understand it
A broken arm sucks ass but an extra half an hour drive to get seen 2 hours sooner seems like a good trade.
I've worked in ERs where on a really busy night patients with chest pain and a cardiac history that came in by ambulance went out to the lobby because their EKG was mostly okay and literally the only room open was the resuscitation bay. We kept checking on him in the lobby and did repeat EKGs until a room was available, but if there's not space and they're not dying, they'll just have to wait.
In a true emergency, there is no wait time.
I don't understand it either. I think it's usually the corporate owned and run ERs that have those billboards and the community hospital ERs just triage people as they come and offer no guarantees about wait times.
Dad was a lab tech at a hospital that gad the wait time. The only people who cared where upper management since it is a good advertisements
This is fact. And to add to this, its actually better and you will be seen quicker if you drive/have someone drive you to the hospital if you are gunshot or have a major stab wound. The chances of survival are much better then waiting for an ambulance. And if you are in that situation, speed as fast as you safely can. IF you get pulled over make sure the cop knows the situation so they can escort you to the hospital.
This is VERY country specific. In some countries ambulances focus on fast transport with minimal care in the ambulance (IIRC this is the case in the US), elsewhere they can provide significant first aid while on the way. If it takes you 15 minutes to the hospital and the ambulance needs 10 to get to you and 10 to the hospital, you'll be at the hospital 5 minutes later but will receive care 5 minutes sooner.
In Germany the ambulance will have what I think would be equivalent to one EMT-B and one paramedic, but a emergency physician may be brought to the scene with a separate car.
American ambulances are usually an EMT and a Paramedic that can start some pretty advanced care en route. Paramedics can intubate, defibrillate, and give medications on their own authority or with clearance from the EMS medical director.
Here we have different ambulances for different use cases and locations. For example, in the city, they will mostly have those sleek fast ambulances and in rural areas, they use more boxy ambulances with more capabilities.
Eh, for some significant trauma, the ambulance is better because they know which hospitals are equipped for the emergency in question and which hospitals have resuscitation or trauma bays open. They call ahead too which also allows for the ER staff to prepare and have people standing by to receive you.
(I worked at a #1 trauma center for 16 years)
I was just stating what is the "public secret" and there is a lot of studies to back it
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hold_the_phone_an_ambulance_might_lower_your_chances_of_surviving_some_injuries
https://hub.jhu.edu/2017/09/20/emergency-transport-survival-rates-study-hopkins/
I could provide more links but those are the first couple from sites that I would trust
I have also worked at a Level 1 Trauma hospital, and I think it depends on the distance from the hospital and the degree of specialty care needed. Also, since Covid, there have been more and more staffing and capacity problems in ERs. Taking a critical patient to an ER with no available resus bays that is also boarding ICU patients due to a lack of ICU staffing is going to be less effective and less safe than going the extra distance to a hospital that does have the capacity to care for the patient. Studies from before 2020 are just not relevant anymore.
I have several medical family members. Yup thats right. Mister snow globe in the butt will have to have