January 24, 2012 | Categories: Crowd Control

Emergency rooms are meant to be used in the event of an unexpected disaster that causes life-threatening injuries. Such facilities are meant to provide immediate care to those who need it the most, but lately, hospitals around the nation are dealing with overcrowding that could easily be prevented with some foresight. Recently, some hospitals have begun implementing queuing systems designed to offer crowd management year-round.

For example, several hospitals in the greater St. Louis metro area are introducing a new queuing system called "inQuicker" to lower the possibility of overcrowding in the ER. The technology allows patients with non-life-threatening injuries to fill out necessary forms online and request appointment times, providing doctors with all of the information they need in advance rather than wasting time on the spot. It also prevents queuing of non-essential patients in the ER, as people using inQuicker can wait at home and then show up at the appointed time.

The National Center for Biotechnology Information recently published a report on emergency room wait time, that among other things acknowledged "emergency department overcrowding is widespread in U.S. cities and has reportedly reached crisis proportions." Queuing systems like inQuicker can prevent such jams before they even occur, and save many lives in the process.