Patients Spent an Average of Four Hours and Three Minutes in U.S. Emergency Departments in 2008, According to Latest Press Ga...( Authoritative Report on Emergency Dep...),Health

Authoritative Report on Emergency Department Experiences Released Today, Available at www.ImproveMyER.com

SOUTH BEND, Ind., June 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Press Ganey Associates, Inc., the health care industry's leading provider of quality improvement solutions, today released the 2009 Emergency Department Pulse Report: Patient Perspectives on American Health Care. According to the report, patients now spend an average total time of 4 hours and 3 minutes in the emergency room (ER), also known as the emergency department (ED). That is a 27-minute increase in the nationwide average time since 2002.

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Press Ganey's Emergency Department Pulse Report analyzed the experiences of nearly 1.4 million patients treated at 1,725 emergency departments nationwide in 2008. Notable findings from the 2009 pulse report include:

• South Dakota has the lowest total time spent in the emergency department (3 hours, 52 minutes) while Utah had the highest total time (6 hours, 48 minutes).
• Two states showed notable improvement in their emergency department average total times over the year. Virginia patients spent 23 fewer minutes in the emergency department in 2008 than they had in 2007, while patients in Maryland spent 14 fewer minutes in the ED last year.
• The metro areas with the highest patient satisfaction in the emergency department for 2008 were, in order, Miami, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, Houston, Dallas/Ft. Worth and New York/Long Island. Miami moved up from third on last year's list, while Detroit moved up from fourth. Philadelphia wa
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