Patients Say No Thank You and Leave in the Midst of Lengthy ED Waits

It’s a strange phenomenon, but there are data to back it up: The emergency room at St. Charles Bend in Bend, OR is getting more traffic—it’s just not necessarily treating more patients. Nearly 5% of the people who check in to the ED leave without being seen (LWBS) because the wait is simply too long. That’s nearly three times the national average. The Bulletin newspaper in Bend noted that LWBS was the most common diagnosis code applied to patient visits. While that presents headaches for those tasked with keeping records, and is undoubtedly something of an embarrassment for administrators, it also leaves too many patients open to potentially serious medical conditions that will go untreated, or with treatment delayed. The hospital’s director of emergency services admitted she was “not happy” with the LWBS figures and vowed to focus on improving the data—efforts that were successful in the month of August, at least. One proposed solution is to divert more patients to nearby St. Charles’ Immediate Care and Bend Memorial Clinic’s Urgent Care clinics near the Bend hospital, and to do so earlier.