Alaska Regional Hospital - March 29, 2014

You may have heard or seen some recent advertising referencing our short Emergency Room wait times. It's all part of our effort to increase awareness of our commitment to deliver faster, better emergency care.

We believe that the wait time to receive high quality care in our Emergency Room is shorter than that of any other local hospital.

Did you know that in ERs in Alaska and across the country, patients are seen in order according to the severity of their illness or injury when they arrive? If you go to the ER with a head injury or chest pain, you will be seen before the kid who got his hand stuck in the pickle jar.

Speaking of which, always call 911 if you or someone nearby is experiencing major medical emergency including life-limb-or sight threatening injuries, severe illness, heart attack or stroke symptoms.

When faced with a less severe medical emergency, Alaskans can easily find out how quickly they will be seen by a qualified medical professional at our ER.

Cell phone users can text “ER” to 23000 and then reply with their zip code. Soon, a text will deliver the average wait time at Alaska Regional Hospital.

Wait times are also readily available on our website. It's updated via an RSS satellite feed, which means they are accurate at any time of the day or night.

It's true, sometimes our wait times are short, and sometimes they are longer. We're often asked, “Are those times real?” In short, yes. Our wait times are updated every 30 minutes and based on a four-hour rolling average.

Here's what some of our actual patients have said regarding our wait time:

The biggest reason I go there is because the ER waits are very short. So that rocks. Especially with a child like mine, I'm at the emergency room more than I'd like to be.

I appreciate Alaska Regional's help, and the speed in which they do it.

It went very quickly and it was nice to walk in there and get care and walk out and not have it be such a long drawn out process.

Hopefully, you don't spend enough time in the ER to know the difference between a short and long wait time. If you ever need emergency care, we can assure you that our commitment helps to ensure that you'll quickly be treated. Not seated.