Hospital implements SMS feature to inform patients of emergency room wait times

If you happen to find yourself having to make a trip to a hospital emergency room for some kind of health issue that arises unexpectedly, you may be surprised with what you might be greeted to when you first roll in. Sometimes emergency rooms can be swamped with a myriad of patients that are inflicted with various medical issues that can range from life threatening all the way to minor problems.  In some cases, patients are required to wait an unspecified amount of time before seeing a doctor due to the amount of people seeking treatment. The Riverside Community Hospital, located in California, has implemented a new text messaging feature that allows patients to find out what the wait times are for the hospital ahead of time. Simply being referred to as the “Know Before You Go” text system, one would send a text message to the system and wait for a response that'll provide an estimated wait time. Even though it's nice to know what kind of wait you'll have to subject yourself to ahead of time, we'd figure that it could change at any time seeing that some patients may be taken ahead based on their condition. Still, it offers little assurance to those individuals who would think an emergency room visit wouldn't require long wait times.

via Textually