Why Doesn’t Anybody in the "Emergency Room" Seem to Understand That an Emergency Means Urgent?

This question was originally posted on Quora.com and was answered by Bi Mian, ED Locum doctor doing a biomedical PhD



There have already been many good answers but because I work in the ER, I feel like I should chime in on this.

Emergency care DOES NOT EQUATE with urgent care. The majority of patients that come to ER are not emergency cases. They are urgent care cases that can afford even waiting 6–24 hours as they are not life or limb or organ threatening. It's nice that we can sort out your problem, but it won't kill you anytime soon.

Here in Australia, we have a triaging system from 1–5. Very rarely we get it wrong, but the nurses who do so are highly trained at it and they do tend to be more liberal with giving “more urgent” numbers. It ranges from

1: immediately life threatening (you get seen immediately)

to

5: minor illness, you could probably have gotten better on your own or could have seen your primary care provider in the next few days. (We aim to see you within 120min if possible).

Perhaps this picture speaks more than anything I can write here.




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