PHILADELPHIA, June 17 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers linked crowded emergency rooms to greater rates of complication in heart attack patients.
The study, published in Academic Emergency Medicine, found chest pain patients were three times more likely to experience serious complications after hospital admission when the emergency department was at its highest occupancy.
Dr. Jesse Pines of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, the study's lead author, said when the "patient-hours" level -- or total of hours of waiting for all emergency room patients -- was highest, the chest pain patients were more than five times more likely to have a complication after admission.
The researchers said they could not pinpoint the exact causes why both groups of patients had worse outcomes, but suggest poorer care coordination, delays in testing and overburdened hospital doctors and nurses may be responsible.
"The adverse events occurred after the patient had been admitted to the hospital. Emergency department crowding is really more of a marker of a dysfunctional hospital," Pines said in a statement. "Making sure the emergency department isn't crowded will certainly make patients happier, but our hope is this will make hospitals safer for everyone."
The study tracked 4,574 chest pain patients admitted to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania over an eight-year period.
