Study Links Long Ambulance Offload Times and Hospitals With Attractive Nurses

Is there a link between attractive Emergency Room nurses and lengthy EMS off-loading time? Recent studies from local EMS providers suggest this is a very real possibility. After reviewing performance improvement and statistical reports, a common practice within pre-hospital providers, it was discovered that EMS ER off-loading times were significantly longer than in previous years. This prompted an investigation by multiple EMS directors throughout the metroplex to discover the cause and rectify it. Longer off load times means less ambulance availability to service the community. “We couldn’t easily pinpoint a reason for the upward trend in response times. Our staffing hasn’t changed and the call volume remains the same as it did 3 years ago” said a spokesperson for a major local EMS service. “Because we could not come to a concrete conclusion, we turned to local hospitals for assistance.” Together the EMS providers and the six hospitals within the district decided to perform a survey.

Of the six Fort Worth hospitals that participated in the survey, John Peter Smith, Texas Health Resources formerly known as Harris Methodist and Cook Children’s Hospital were shown to have the most lengthy offload times. “We spent several months watching the daily operations and the exchanges taking place between our paramedics and the hospital staff. We initially attributed the delay to the fact that these hospitals are trauma facilities and ambulance traffic tends to be increased at these facilities. However,  after taking a closer look at our trauma statistics, we could not make that direct connection and it appeared to have no significant correlation.” Claimed the EMS spokesperson.

Management staff of the ambulance services began observing behaviors of their staff within the ER. Very quickly a trend developed. It was noted that male paramedics spent significantly longer periods of time conversing at the nurses station, than they did actually reporting off patient care.  In the incidents observed, surveyors concluded that physical appearance and nurse willingness to engage in conversation were by far the most prevalent cause of lengthy ER stay by EMS personnel.

While most paramedics refused to comment, a few did acknowledge that the data presented to them was true. One paramedic, who wished to remain anonymous, was quoted as saying, “Flirting with hot nurses is an age-old tradition around EMS”. Another paramedic agreed with the assumption that attractive nurses might cause delays, but disagreed on the specific data presented. “Yeah, if there’s a good lookin’ nurse that wants to talk, I’m gonna talk, but I don’t think any particular hospital has anything to do with it. A good lookin’ nurse is a good lookin’ nurse….doesn’t matter what hospital they work at”.

EMS directors from around the area are celebrating this study as a success. “It makes perfect sense”, stated one director. “I mean, you can’t sit in an ambulance bay for two seconds without hearing our guys gossip about nurses. For Christ’s sake, they even have a 1-10 scale for determining how attractive these women are”. However, not everyone agrees with the data. “I think this study was completely bogus”, stated one local ER physician. “The data is too subjective. There’s no way to conclusively determine if a paramedic finds a nurse attractive. You know, what’s a 10 to one guy might be a 3 to another. There’s just too many variables”.

Moving forward, the EMS directors involved feel that they have a better understanding of the situation. None of the directors that were interviewed commented on specific policy or operational changes that they plan to make, but they did conclude that we can expect to see significant improvement in the near future as the nursing population ages, becoming less attractive and nurse turn-over within the ER is at an all time high.