Cheshire Medical Center’s Emergency Department and general care facilities are experiencing longer waiting times than normal. According to Heather Atwell, the director of communications for Cheshire Medical, new patients are still accepted at outpatient offices, but they may experience delays. In the emergency department, the beds rose to 98 percent full as of January.
A good idea would be to expand the emergency department and hire more staff, so the wait times would be reduced. This may be difficult to do all at once, but over time, small steps to add more beds to the emergency department can help improve the wait time and more importantly make sure patients in urgent situations get the help they need in a timely fashion. Although patients in life-threatening states, such as heart attacks and strokes, are given priority, less urgent matters, such as needing stitches or tetanus shots, still require medical attention and patients cannot afford to wait too long.
If the emergency department even increases its beds by five percent and hires a few new staff members, the wait time would rapidly decrease. As for the outpatient (primary care physicians and specialists) facilities, if the current staff is unable to take on new patients in a timely fashion, they should refer the patients to other providers who are close by and have the availability to take on new patients. This way, it decreases frustration on both the staff’s and patient’s sides and makes sure patients still get the outpatient care they need and deserve quickly.
With that being said, there might not be very specific specialists (such as endocrinologists or orthopedists, for example) in a reasonable radius of patients. Nobody wants to drive four hours both ways to see a provider, and the doctors and other staff of these specialist and primary facilities do not want to be overwhelmed with the amount of patients they take on, in turn making them wait longer. It seems as though there may not be any great solutions for this issue.
In a perfect world, it would be possible for patients in both the emergency and outpatient offices to get the medical attention they need without having to wait hours on end. There may not be any solutions at the moment. Over time, if the emergency department adds staff members and increases the number of beds they can put patients in, that would help the wait times, but it will take time and not happen overnight.
Clare Moylan can be contacted at
CMoylan@kscequinox.com
