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Local emergency rooms first in Ohio to use appointments

Nurses (from left) Jason Merritt, Carrie Licklider and Julie Hamilton review information submitted through InQuicker, an online system that allows patients to wait at home.

Staff Photo By Marshall Gorby Nurses (from left) Jason Merritt, Carrie Licklider and Julie Hamilton review information submitted through InQuicker, an online system that allows patients to wait at home.

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Miami Valley Hospital, along with Miami Valley Hospital South and Good Samaritan Hospital, have recently implemented InQuicker, an online system allows patients to check in with emergency rooms at the three hospitals and wait at home.

Staff Photo By Marshall Gorby Miami Valley Hospital, along with Miami Valley Hospital South and Good Samaritan Hospital, have recently implemented InQuicker, an online system allows patients to check in with emergency rooms at the three hospitals and wait at home.

New online program offers a way for certain patients to bypass wait.

By Ben Sutherly, Staff Writer Updated 1:46 PM Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Three local hospitals are the first in Ohio to let patients schedule visits to their emergency rooms.

Miami Valley and Good Samaritan hospitals, as well as Miami Valley Hospital South in Centerville, had 70 patients schedule times to be seen in their emergency rooms in December. The move is meant to let patients suffering from less serious medical problems such as migraine headaches and sprains bypass long waits in sometimes crowded conditions, thereby improving patient satisfaction.

Hospitals hope greater patient satisfaction translates into more business. Allowing patients to make ER appointments online is a way hospitals can distinguish themselves from the competition, said Chris Song, a spokesman for InQuicker, the Nashville, Tenn.-based company that makes the scheduling software used by the hospitals.

Miami Valley Hospital, home to the region’s sole Level I trauma center, has one of the busiest emergency departments in Ohio. More than 7,000 patients visited its ER in December.

Kettering Health Network, whose hospitals compete with Miami Valley and Good Samaritan hospitals, has also made a big push recently to advertise its hospitals’ emergency departments. In November, it upgraded the ER at its flagship hospital, Kettering Medical Center, to a Level II trauma center, which can handle more seriously ill or injured patients.

Officials said wait times in Miami Valley Hospital’s ERs have dropped from 60 minutes in 2009 to 37 minutes last year.

“That’s pretty significant for patient satisfaction,” said Bonnie Coalt, a hospital nursing director who oversees the emergency department.

Hospital officials hope InQuicker further reduces that average wait time.

KHN spokeswoman Elizabeth Long declined to disclose average wait times at the network’s seven hospital emergency departments, which between them saw about 180,000 visits in 2011.

With InQuicker, patients are able to be seen by a doctor within 15 minutes of their appointment times in about 90 percent of cases, Song said. The company declined to disclose what it charges hospitals for the service or its annual revenue, though Song said revenues in 2011 were four times what they were in 2010. In December, about 5,000 patients scheduled appointments at 100 hospitals nationwide through InQuicker.

By offering appointments, the hospital is catering to the roughly 70 percent of its emergency room patients who drive themselves to the hospital or are brought there by family members. The remaining 30 percent come by ambulance.

InQuicker’s software program has been set up to filter out appointments for those who may need treatment immediately, such as patients experiencing respiratory or heart conditions.

“If you need to see a doctor right away, call 911 or get to your nearest emergency department,” said Jason Merritt, ER nurse manager at Miami Valley Hospital.

InQuicker tells patients that they should not use the system for life-threatening or other emergency situations. The scheduling tool screens patients’ answers to basic questions and the reasons they give for their visit to filter out patients whose illnesses may be serious for the service.

Tony Stringer, president of the Greater Miami Valley EMS Council, said he doesn’t see too great a risk that patients with more severe conditions will spend precious time scheduling an ER appointment instead of getting to a hospital right away.

“I think the people who use the ER as a physician’s office will use the service more,” he said. “I don’t see people with major illnesses using it. ... People are more educated about health care now than they were years ago.”

By having a filter in the system, patients who may have more serious health issues can be alerted to come to the emergency room right away, Song said. In the past, those patients may have been reticent to visit the ER and may have delayed or even skipped treatment, he said.

“People are self-triaging all the time in terms of whether they want to go to the ER or if they want to go to Urgent Care,” Song said. “One of the barriers to access we’re trying to address is the fear of going to the emergency room because of a long wait in an uncomfortable space.”

There is no fee for the service, which the hospitals quietly rolled out on a trial basis in August. The hospitals — part of Premier Health Partners — began promoting the service through a postcard mailed to 175,000 households in December. Premier’s other hospitals, Atrium and Upper Valley medical centers, will begin using the program soon.

Patients who use the system can log in at https://php.inquicker.com/

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7457 or bsutherly@DaytonDaily News.com.

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