Wait Times

Control of wait times BEFORE and AFTER the implementation of single-payer national health insurance requires good queue management of resources to have good wait times with the same or fewer resources

Improvement Needed in U.S.. The United States has definite need for improvement regarding wait times, as seen in the articles below.

Subject Independent of Single-Payer Wait times is a subject independent of the topic of the United States going to single-payer. Many people, especially those people in engineering and scientific disciplines, can appreciate that wait times are an opportunity for properly managing resources that can lead to better performance at the same or lower cost.

• Study: Longer Wait Times for Emergency Rooms by Joanne Silberner – NPR Morning Edition 1-15-2008
  • “A new study describes a disturbing trend in hospital emergency rooms: longer wait times even for very sick people. That finding follows a recent report from the Institute of Medicine that described emergency rooms as being at the breaking point.”
• The Doc’s In, but It’ll Be a While – Business Week 6-22-07 
• On Health Care Reform: Long Waits are really SiCKO – PNHP¹ 7-10-07
• Waiting Times for Care? Try Looking at the U.S. – PNHP 7-05-07
  • Sub-title: Nurses, Doctors Say It’s Time to Debunk the Myths
  • Sub-title: Even Aetna Admits U.S. System ‘Is Not Timely’
• Do we need private solutions to control queues? – PNHP 1-13-06
  • Hint from Bob: The answer is a clear “no!” Read this article and the others above it!
• Further reading: at www.google.com do a search for this:
  • “wait times” site:www.pnhp.org
  • One of the results you will get is “Queue Management in U.S. Emergency Departments” about how queue management was applied in a California medical center to slash “emergency room waiting times from an average of four to six hours to one to two hours in just two months …”