Long Wait Times

What's the longest you've had to wait to transfer a patient to a busy hospital?

Recently, two paramedics in England had to wait two hours. Read the story here:

http://www.jems.com/article/news/paramedics-wait-2-hours-transfer-p...

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Skip Kirkwood on December 3, 2012 at 12:49am

That's not a flaw - it has nothing to do with providing good care to patients. That is all artificial bureaucratic stuff that contributes nothing. The hospital can't decide what to do for the patient until somebody finds out what is wrong with the patient - that is the triage function. The bookkeeping can occur any time in the next four hours (at least, before someone starts writing diagnostic or treatment orders). Do triage - put the patient somewhere - get the data - do the care. Financial penalties on the hospital are not our problem - and if the hospital tries to make it our problem by gaming the system (not entering the person in to the system so the clock doesn't start) we need to call BS on that too. EMS is not the buffer for the hospitals' lack of capacity!