More needs to be done to reduce wait times in hospital emergency rooms, but there was little agreement between doctors and lawmakers Monday about how best to solve the problem.
House Speaker Michael Busch, D-Anne Arundel, said the state health department should do more to identify areas in Maryland where the need for emergency services is greatest, and make sure capital projects in those areas are given priority.
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“We also have to cut in half in the next four years the 800,000 Marylanders without health care,” Busch said. Members of both chambers of the General Assembly have been working on a package of legislation this session designed to improve health care access. Del. Peter Hammen, D-Baltimore City, who chairs the House Health and Government Operations Committee is expected to file the first of such bills this week.
Democratic Gov. Martin O?Malley also has pledged his support for measures to expand Medicaid eligibility and offer more insurance choices for small businesses. But newly confirmed state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Secretary John Colmers said the problem of overcrowding and long wait times in the emergency room was more symptomatic of an overall shortage of doctors and nurses to provide care.
“I don?t think it?s an issue that we need more emergency departments,” Colmers said. “[The problem] is on the back end. … We need to get people out [of the emergency room].”
Colmers said the state commission in charge of hospital construction currently is considering an estimated $4.5 million in capital project requests throughout the state, many of them for upgrades to emergency rooms at existing hospitals.
Maryland emergency rooms have the second longest average wait time in the country. The average wait time in emergency rooms in Baltimore City was 240 minutes, according to a report released by the city health department in July 2006.
The Maryland Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians sponsored the roundtable discussion in Annapolis.
Emergency room physicians said emergency departments get backed up and filled up for a variety of reasons, including an increase in the number of elderly patients and those seeking treatment for chronic illnesses. Emergency rooms have also seen an increase in patients needing psychiatric care and treatment for substance abuse.
