Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
ER patients can save time
Online check-ins make visits more convenient, official says
SPRINGDALE — Patients at some emergency rooms in Northwest Arkansas can shorten wait times by checking in online before they arrive.
Denten Park, chief executive officer of Northwest Health system, said the process makes emergency room visits easier for patients because they can check in on their phones. Northwest, which has emergency departments in hospitals in Springdale, Bentonville and Siloam Springs, implemented the program in 2017.
“Our goal for our emergency waiting room is to never have anyone waiting in it,” he said.
Less than 1 percent of the 84,500 patient visits to Northwest emergency rooms last year used online check-in, said Beth Bradfield Wright, vice president of marketing and business development at Northwest Health.
Northwest Health’s urgent care clinics also offer the online check-in as do three local Mercy urgent care clinics.
Wright said the medical system wants to make overall care more convenient and doesn’t have any specific goals to increase online check-in.
Tera Sullivan of Rogers used online check-in about three weeks ago for her 11-month-old son who had a fever. She said she took him to another emergency room earlier that day and waited two hours before leaving without a diagnosis.
She said she used the online check-in at Northwest for later that day because she was still worried about her son. Sullivan said they waited for five minutes before he was diagnosed with the flu.
Sullivan said the process was simple to use and convenient.
Online check-in isn’t always the best option though, said Tiffany Means, director of the emergency department. When in doubt, she said, it’s always better to call 911 and go to the emergency room in an ambulance.
Patients who show signs of heart attack or stroke shouldn’t drive themselves or ride in a personal vehicle because they could become unconscious on the way to the hospital, Means said.
Trauma and seriously injured patients will always move to the front of the line.
“I think most people understand and appreciate that the seriously ill have to be treated first. If it was your mother or dad, you’d want them going in first,” Wright said.
The most common reason people go to emergency rooms is for pain, such as abdominal pain or severe headaches, said Patricia Kunz Howard, president of the Emergency Nurses Association. Traumas such as car crashes and falls are also common, but many emergency room visits are for routine illnesses, she said.
Kunz Howard said she has seen a growing number of hospitals implementing online check-in programs.
Caitlin Donovan, spokeswoman for the National Patient Advocate Foundation, had some qualms with the idea.
“The general problem is you still have to operate based on severity,” she said.
Donovan said although allowing patients to check in beforehand would allow the hospital staff to know what to expect, she noted people without Internet access could essentially be put at the bottom of the waiting list.
Northwest has worked on shortening wait times for all emergency room patients, and the times have decreased in recent years, said Hans Driessnack, chief executive officer for Northwest Health-Springdale. The medical system in 2016 began its “30-minute pledge” which promises patients will see a nurse or doctor within 30 minutes of entering the emergency room.
The average emergency room wait times are 11 minutes at the Springdale and Siloam Springs hospitals and nine minutes in Bentonville, according to Northwest Health’s website.
Park said patients occasionally wait more than 30 minutes when there’s an especially high number of trauma cases.
The average wait time is 30 minutes in the emergency room of Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers, said Jennifer Cook, Mercy spokeswoman.
Mercy’s emergency room doesn’t offer online check-in, but its urgent care centers in Springdale, Rogers and Fayetteville do, Cook said. Mercy’s convenient care clinics have a service called “Hold My Place” that Cook said is comparable to online checkin.
“Mercy is looking at further integrating online check-in in ERs and clinics to improve ease of access for patients,” she said.
Urgent care clinics are a middle care option between convenient care and an emergency room visit. An urgent care clinic can treat such conditions as broken bones, sprains and strep throat.
A representative for Washington Regional Medical Center said Friday afternoon she couldn’t answer questions about online check-in.