The ER Shouldn't be About Convenience

I've been seeing more of these bill boards advertising wait times (or the lack thereof) at hospital emergency rooms.  I worry that these signs are portraying the ER as a place for one to access care immediately, and that's not what it's supposed to be.  An ER is just that - a place for emergency care.  For care that is urgent or necessary but not an emergency, the ER is an inappropriate place to get that care from both a cost and results perspective, not to mention the delays it might cause for people who truly have an emergency.  And yet use of the ER  has continued to increase, to approximately 134 million annual visits.

Hospitals may want to re-think the use of these signs.  The last thing we want to do is encourage even more use of the ER as a place to receive basic or primary care.  Our culture of convenience has already created lots of bad habits.  If we're concerned about resources and outcomes, we should avoid adding the emergency department to our addiction for expedience.