Approximately 140 million emergency room (ER) visits occur in the U.S. every year, with 25% of them taking place during the summer (CDC, 2022). The summer months bring unique health risks that aren’t as prominent in other seasons, accounting for this significant spike.
The key to minimizing summertime ER visits is knowing the common causes for these incidents and how to prevent them.
Some of the Busiest Emergency Room Days Occur in the Summer
ER visits increase during the summer, especially around holiday weekends like Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day (Pew Research Center, 2019). Children represent a large portion of ER patients involved in this seasonal rise. Researchers concluded that individuals are at a higher risk of injury during these months due to an increase in daylight hours and popular outdoor activities, like using fireworks.
Doctors treat many injuries and illnesses during the summer months, which account for record increases in ER visits.
Most Common Reasons for Emergency Room Visits in the Summer
Healthcare providers treat many injuries and illnesses during the summer months, which account for record increases in ER visits. Some of these accidents include:
- Bicycle injuries: Bicycle accidents can cause head injuries, broken bones, bruises, and fractures.
- Drowning: Though swimming is a widely beloved summertime activity, it’s responsible for many deadly drownings and near-drownings.
- ATV accidents: Crashes on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) like dirt bikes, four-wheelers, and motorcycles result in severe injuries and fatalities every year.
- Burns: Summertime activities like bonfires, grilling, and fireworks are notorious for causing serious burns in children and adults.
- Orthopedic injuries: Summer is the ideal time for outdoor sports and other recreational activities. With increased physical activity comes a higher risk of joint-related injuries like broken bones, sprains, strains, and tears.
- Sun-related illnesses: Excess sun exposure causes many serious heat-related illnesses like severe sunburn, heat stroke, heat exhaustion, blistering, and heat cramps.
While these unfortunate calamities often affect children, they also extend to teenagers and even adults who participate in these summertime activities, driving up ER visits.
Who Is Most at Risk for Emergency Room Visits in Summer?
While anyone can sustain injuries during the summer, children are more likely to have accidents that require medical attention. Once the school year ends, kids become more active and gain more free time while experiencing a significant change in supervision, putting them at higher risk of accidents and injuries.
For example, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death for children between ages 1 and 14, making swimming a particularly high-risk summertime activity for kids (World Health Organization, 2024).
The Impact of Increased Emergency Room Visits and How to Handle It
If you’re in charge of what feels like the busiest ER in the United States, an influx of customers can be overwhelming if you aren’t prepared for it. If you know that summer is the worst time to go to the emergency room because of how crowded it is, you need to take measures to ensure your patients and staff are all taken care of.
1. Bigger Staff Demand
An emergency room with higher patient numbers requires more hands on deck, but that’s not always possible. A summer’s day is often the busiest day of the year for hospitals, so your regular staff schedule isn’t going to cut it. If there is a staff shortage, patients may need to wait hours before getting medical attention.
Since this increased demand is likely a recurring situation each year, you should prepare for it beforehand. Talk to your superiors to find out how you can get more resources, whether monetary or people working in the hospital. You may need to hire temporary nurses and other staff to keep things flowing during this demanding time. You can also ask workers whether they’d be willing to work overtime.
2. Staff Burnout
With the increased mental and physical demands of working long hours in the emergency room, your employees may start to feel burnt out. Burnout is a serious concern as it can affect your staff’s mental health and harm the quality of their work.
Almost three out of five employees experience stress at work, and trying to juggle a busy emergency room may increase their stress levels, leading to mental health issues (American Psychological Association, 2022). It’s in the business’s and its employees’ best interest to allow staff members adequate time to rest if they are working longer hours than usual. You can also provide adequate on-site resting facilities so that healthcare professionals can take breaks at work.
3. More Admin
The more patients you have, the more admin you have. Paperwork, insurance claims, and payment queries can pile up during busy periods, especially if your staff are so occupied with patients that they don’t have time to spend on administration.
While it can be tempting to avoid admin in the hopes of dealing with it once things have calmed down, this may only cause future problems. Instead, come up with an effective paperwork system. Have a schedule that clearly indicates who is in charge of paperwork on which day so that everyone knows what’s expected of them. This will allow you to easily manage the flow of patients in and out of the emergency room without any problems with paperwork.
4. Higher Supply Needs
Having more patients to look after also means you’ll run through supplies more quickly. Whether it’s hospital sheets and gowns, medications, or general necessities like gauze and syringes, you need to order more supplies than usual if you know that summer tends to be a busier season for your emergency room.
Stock up on commonly used items to ensure you always have what your patients need.
How to Encourage Patients to Stay Safe
As a healthcare provider, you can help your patients prevent summertime ER visits by sharing the following summer safety tips:
- Wear protective gear like helmets and knee pads when riding bicycles or ATVs.
- Wear sunscreen, seek shade, and limit sun exposure.
- Supervise children around pools, fires, and grills.
- Set off fireworks at a safe distance from people and buildings.
- Drink plenty of fluids to stay hydrated.
- Use bug spray.
- Warm up before engaging in physical activity.
By advising these summer safety tips, healthcare practitioners can help lower the rate of these injuries and illnesses among their patients.
Stay Safe During the Summer Months
You can prepare for increased ER activity and provide your patients with the seamless healthcare experience they deserve, supported by Practice Management Bridge® from Rectangle Health. Featuring digital registration to contactless payments, our simple and effective solutions reduce administrative burdens, allowing medical professionals to concentrate on providing the highest level of care, especially during these active summer months.
References:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2022, March 25). Emergency Department Visits. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/emergency-department.htm.
- Pew Research Center (2019, July 3). Hospital emergency rooms see boom in patients around the Fourth of July. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/07/03/hospital-emergency-room-visits-fourth-of-july/.
- World Health Organization (2024, August 29). Drowning. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drowning.
- American Psychological Association (2022, January 1). Burnout and stress are everywhere. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/01/special-burnout-stress.
