by KYW's Mike DeNardo
Been to an emergency room lately? Chances are, you had plenty of company.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control released on Wednesday says the nation's emergency rooms are busier than ever. There were a record 119 million emergency room visits in 2006, according to the latest CDC report.
That continues a trend. The number has risen 32 percent over the last ten years.
Dr. Ted Christopher, who heads the emergency department at Jefferson Hospital in center city Philadelphia, says not only is the population aging and visiting ERs more, but the waiting times are growing because patient workups are taking longer:
"I think that patients and private physicians view the emergency departments as a place to have their blood tests drawn, their CAT scans performed, their MRIs done, and their ultrasounds, and all of the new technologies now in medicine that we use."
Christopher says the problem is only growing more acute because while there are more emergency room patients, there are fewer ERs.
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