Hospitals adopt triage approach to reduce emergency room waits amid flu outbreak

Dave Peterson, 72, of Blaine, arrived at United’s emergency room at 10:30 a.m. Thursday complaining of numbness in one hand, a possible symptom of stroke. He didn’t arrive in an emergency room until around 3 p.m., but by then he had undergone blood work and imaging that confirmed he had had a mild stroke due to a blood clot.

“It was very busy,” Peterson said, “and you just wait your turn because there are a lot of people here and most of them are worse than me.”

Peterson admitted it was strange to receive medical care in a triage room, then be brought back among other patients in the waiting room. Her daughter helped an older woman next to her by putting her feet in her wheelchair and putting padding behind her back.

But before then, “they probably would have waited four and a half hours for anything to happen,” Echols said.

Upstream blockage in hospitals remains part of the problem. Thirty of United’s 40 emergency room patients, including Peterson, were waiting for inpatient beds to open up on the hospital floor.

Flu outbreaks at 14 Minnesota long-term care facilities last week won’t help. This represents an increase from eight outbreaks the previous week. Nursing homes often lose workers to illness during outbreaks, meaning they can’t accommodate as many patients when they are ready to be discharged from the hospital. This in turn keeps hospital beds occupied, which congests emergency rooms.