A crowded emergency department can kill you

The Washington Post  Posted by Sarah Kliffon December 6, 2012 at 1:57 pm   A crowded emergency department waiting room is more than unpleasant: New research suggests it’s a serious hazard to your health.  Researchers recently looked at the difference in outcomes of patients who entered California hospitals through the emergency department in 2007. They looked at patients who visited the emergency department when it was “saturated,” working at capacity and diverting ambulances elsewhere, and those who visited at less crowded times.  They found, in a new Annals of Emergency Medicine study, that patients who came in through a crowded emergency department had 5 percent greater odds of dying in the hospital. Those patients also had longer hospital stays and higher costs, the same paper finds.  Read more