[akiddoc]

The data is about acute & ICU beds.  What this news article is about is the ER itself and the rate of incoming patients.

I'll see if I can find out about that.

As best I can tell, HCA (24 ERs but 4 closed) is not member of Texas Medical Center but has a hospital at TMC.  Memorial Hermann is a member, but it has hospitals across the greater Houston area (19 ERs). [There are a number of other hospitals & ERs.  Those are the two mentioned in the article.  In addition, Houston has a number of trauma centers at different levels.]

At 5:15PM CST, Friday afternoon, HCA indicated the longest wait time of 11 of its ERs in the Houston metropolitan area was 9 minutes.  4 ERs are temporally closed (to consolidate resources), and another 9 didn't list any wait time (whether 0 or not, I don't know), including the one at TMC.



On a nothing-special day a year and a half ago, I went to the ER with pneumonia.  It took about 6 hours (8PM to 2AM) to get a bed in a particular SCC hospital.  Thankfully, they weren't busy.

Time to get into a hospital bed usually has more to do with nursing availability than census. Hospitals try to run lean to save money. Normally you have to wait for the next nursing shift when they call in extra nurses to get out of the ER and into a bed.

[akiddoc]

The data is about acute & ICU beds.  What this news article is about is the ER itself and the rate of incoming patients.

I'll see if I can find out about that.

As best I can tell, HCA (24 ERs but 4 closed) is not member of Texas Medical Center but has a hospital at TMC.  Memorial Hermann is a member, but it has hospitals across the greater Houston area (19 ERs). [There are a number of other hospitals & ERs.  Those are the two mentioned in the article.  In addition, Houston has a number of trauma centers at different levels.]

At 5:15PM CST, Friday afternoon, HCA indicated the longest wait time of 11 of its ERs in the Houston metropolitan area was 9 minutes.  4 ERs are temporally closed (to consolidate resources), and another 9 didn't list any wait time (whether 0 or not, I don't know), including the one at TMC.



On a nothing-special day a year and a half ago, I went to the ER with pneumonia.  It took about 6 hours (8PM to 2AM) to get a bed in a particular SCC hospital.  Thankfully, they weren't busy.

Time to get into a hospital bed usually has more to do with nursing availability than census. Hospitals try to run lean to save money. Normally you have to wait for the next nursing shift when they call in extra nurses to get out of the ER and into a bed.