How Long is the ER Wait in Bradenton Hospitals?

If you have a broken bone and need pain medicine at the emergency room in Bradenton, expect to wait more than most Americans. 

Patients waited up to an average of 86 minutes at Manatee Memorial Hospital for some pain relief, above the national average of 62 minutes, according to a new federal database.

Lakewood Ranch Medical Center had the best time in that category at 67 minutes while Blake Medical Center came in at 76 minutes. 

Florida is famous for its hospital billboards flashing the average ER wait time up and down highways, but this newly released data finds how long the wait really is during the course of a sample period.

A new federal database publicly released wait times averages, measuring the wait in several categories. Data for Bradenton hospitals were collected from Jan. 1 to March 31, 2012. (View the Bradenton results in the PDF with this story.)

Key measures of ER efficiency have been posted from hospitals taking part across the country,according to a report in HealthLeaders Media.

“With precious little fanfare, Uncle Sam last month rolled out a big, fat database with seven measures comparing a service that many people—healthcare providers and patients alike—consider the most critical any hospital can provide,”writer Cheryl Clark wrote Thursday.

Data collected in 2011 and early 2012 also tracked how long it took for an ER patient to be seen by a healthcare professional and how long the wait was to get a bed if they needed admission. Other data showed how long patients spent in the ER before being sent home and whether they received a brain scan if they might have suffered a stroke. 

What might jump out at people is the first set of numbers for Timely Emergency Department Care—a whopping six-plus hours (402 minutes) in the ER at Manatee Memorial before being admitted as an inpatient, but not everyone requires an extended stay at the hospital. Still, it is above the national average of 277 minutes, and above the Florida average of 315 minutes. Blake Medical, a trauma center, ranks below both the state and national averages at 210 minutes.

Blake Medical Center has the shortest emergency room wait time in Bradenton before someone is seen by a doctor or nurse at just 22 minutes.

Manatee Memorial Hospital checks in at just under an hour—54 minutes while Lakewood Ranch Medical Center clocks its wait at 39 minutes. 

As folks who go to the doctor know, it can be quite a while between the time someone sees you to collect information and the time a doctor sees you again and gets you prepped to go home.

Both Manatee Memorial and Blake ER patients spend 172 minutes at the ER before going home, while Lakewood Ranch is a tad quicker at 132 minutes, according to the database. 

Clark interviewed Dr. Jesse Pines, an emergency room doctor and researcher who directs the center for healthcare quality at George Washington University.

“The theory is that when hospitals report this information, it makes them focus on it, and improve throughout their [Emergency Department],” Pines was quoted as saying.

“But it’s very hard to do. Certain performance measures are easier to fix—like simple process measures like giving patients an aspirin—than improving ED throughput, which involves development of interdisciplinary teams.”

Amazingly at Lakewood Ranch, nobody left the emergency room before being seen, according to a sample of 13,564 patients. One percent of Blake's 18,846 sample patients left, or 188, while nearly 700 patients left Manatee Memorial. 

Manatee Memorial had the highest sample of patients for the test at 34,519.

How To Find Hospital ER Wait Times

First go to the Hospital Compare website. Then type in your ZIP code, city or local hospital. When a list of hospitals is displayed, put a checkmark next to two or three hospitals.

Scroll down to a yellow button labeled Compare Now, and click to display more details. Look for a tab called Timely and Effective Care and click that.

Finally, scroll down to a section called Timely Emergency Department Care. A green button allows you to “View More Details,” displaying something like this page comparing  Manatee Memorial with Blake and Lakewood Ranch medical centers.

Were you surprised by any of the stats displayed?  Tell us in the comments.