A national study released this week claims Iowa is the quickest place in the country to get emergency medical attention. The report from Press Ganey Associates says the average visit to an Iowa E-R lasts two hours, 18 minutes.
Scott McIntyre, with the Iowa Hospital Association, says if Iowans need medical attention, they usually see their own doctor. He says people in other states don’t always have their own doctor, so they just go to the E-R, "Most Iowans don’t use the E-R for routine care, they only use it in an emergency." McIntyre says Iowa also has a lot of small hospitals that just don’t see much emergency room traffic.
"We have a culture here, that we don’t turn people away," McIntyre says, "when people need care, they get it at these clinics and that keeps people out of the E-R." The study shows the longest average E-R visit, at four hours, 57 minutes, is in Arizona. Iowa has the shortest wait, followed by Nebraska, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin.