KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasValley Ambulances Mired at Hospital Emergency Rooms
When you call 911 and you need an ambulance, you expect an immediate response. But local ambulance companies say they are waiting a long time to drop patients off in local hospital emergency rooms, it is slowing down their response times.
Paramedics Brian Nagle and Julie Walters are en route in a Medicwest ambulance to their latest emergency call. "This is for a patient that is urinating blood," explains Brain Nagel.
The patient is loaded into the ambulance and the work begins. The patient is asked about symptoms. "When this happened, did you get really sweaty?" Nagle asks as he checks vital signs.
Within minutes, the ambulance arrives at a local hospital where the patient is taken into the emergency room. Nagel and Walters are anxious to get back on the road and on to another call.
Across town, at Spring Valley Hospital, nurses like Patricia Hatcher work quickly to triage, or prioritize, all cases brought in by ambulances.
"If we don't have beds, we try to put them in stretchers so the ambulance can get back onto the road," Hatcher said.
Under a new state law, hospitals are required to take transfers from ambulance companies in 30 minutes or less.
And hospitals understand the urgency. "They get a lot of 911 calls and I hate to think that they'd be sitting here in our emergency room just holding against a wall when they can be out there helping other patients," Hatcher said.
But in our growing valley, the medical infrastructure is taxed, just like schools and roads.
In order to find out where the worst "bottlenecks" are occurring, the state legislature ordered a study this year to carefully track patient transfer times.
"There were times when paramedics would sit in hallways in different hospitals around town because either the hospital didn't want to deal with the ambulance or they were upset about something or they were just taking care of one side of their hospital, the people walking through the doors," said Dr. Kevin Slaughter, emergency room physician.
Emergency room Dr. Kevin Slaughter believes the study is a good idea. "So this holds everybody accountable and they can't argue with, we've got your number right here, what do you do with that?"
Paramedic Brian Nagle says he doesn't blame the hospitals. "You know they are trying something it is impossible to get in and out in 30 minutes, even 40 minutes."
But, he says, he does worry about patients. "We do our best to get back out on the street but if we have a sick patient and that person is not getting a bed that is one of our biggest frustrations."
The latest data shows the average transfer time is 32 minutes and 46 seconds. With a goal of 30 minutes, about 22-percent of transfers are out of compliance.
There are no penalties for hospitals that don't make that required 30-minute transfer time.
The Southern Nevada Health District is conducting the study and will report its findings to the next session on the state legislature.
That's where the discussion of possible solutions will begin.
