Tuesday, July 8, 2014

RNC Chair Lies about wait times for ER care in California. (Reince says it is 5 hours - not close to the truth)

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jul/08/reince-priebus/rnc-chair-reince-priebus-thanks-barack-obama-five-/

The Republicans are really hurting if they are resorting to blatant lies like this.

What does 'average E.R. wait' mean?
Actually, there isn’t just one definition. A study published in October 2013 by the California Health Care Foundation offered three different measurements. The one Priebus references is "patient arrival to being admitted to hospital as inpatient." For California, this wait was five hours and 26 minutes -- longer than the national average of four hours and 34 minutes.
But this is by far the longest of the three measures. The second longest is "patient arrival to emergency room departure for discharged patients" -- basically, the entire length of the visit for someone who isn’t actually admitted as an inpatient after being seen by the E.R. For Californians, this wait time was two hours and 49 minutes, once again a bit higher than the national average of two hours and 19 minutes.
The third measurement is by far the shortest -- "patient arrival to being seen by health care professional." In California, this was 31 minutes, slightly more than the national average of 29 minutes.
One might take away from Priebus’ tweet that someone going to a California E.R. can expect a wait of more than five hours just to get in to see a doctor or a nurse. In reality, they’re seeing a health professional in about a half an hour -- and if their injury or illness isn’t serious enough to keep them in the hospital overnight, then they’re on their way home in under three hours. For those patients, their entire visit is much shorter than the five hours Priebus indicates.

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