Emergency Room Overload: Demands In Healthcare Rise Without Employees
The population is rising, the amount of elderly is increasing, and healthcare feels an increasing strain each and every year. As numbers grow, more people demand healthcare, and the employee base is not there to accommodate their needs.
In CNN’s article, “How to get help in a hurry in the ER,” reporter Elizabeth Cohen discusses how the wait time in emergency rooms have risen in the past half a decade. “According to a report out this week, the average total waiting time in a U.S. emergency room in 2008 was four hours and three minutes, a 27-minute increase in nationwide average wait times since 2002,” she writes.
Which state has the most emergency room visits? According to Statemaster.com, the District of Columbia is on top with 645 out of 1000 patients, and California is on bottom with 261 out of 1000 patients. The median is 397 : 1000.
One emergency patient visitor became so desperate to get around these wait times that she idly suggested calling the hospital’s president in the middle of the night, receiving immediate service only moments later.
The amount of patients available is not just written off as the population and the aging anymore, either. Recent reports say that the recession has been involved: “The recession is one chief reason for the increase, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians. In a survey in January of more than 1,700 emergency doctors, 66 percent said they’d seen an increase in the number of patients in their emergency rooms over the preceding six months. Most of the physicians — 83 percent — reported seeing patients who’d lost their jobs and health insurance and delayed medical care.”
With these kinds of occurrences becoming so deep-laden in the industry that the emergency room has lost its emergent timeliness, the healthcare industry thirsts for new employees. This is the ideal situation for the pursuer of a healthcare degree, providing job security, a rewarding experience in a high-demand job, and financial stability.
The emergency room is not the only place in need of new employees, either. According to statistics of the fastest growing occupations in the healthcare industry, home health aids and medical assistants are on the top of the charts, and physical and occupational therapy is a thriving field of expertise.
Visit Degrees in Healthcare today to learn more about acquiring a healthcare degree.
