By: Danielle Ulman

Waiting in the ER for care can be a guessing game.

It could be a relatively painless 20 minutes, or take hours. And, in some cases, the idea of a long wait might keep you from going to the hospital at all.

Now, patients in need of emergency care can tell how long they might sit and wait through a new web program offered by the emergency department at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson.

The site is updated every half hour with the estimated time before a patient is seen by medical staff — registered nurse, doctor, physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner. And, it also estimates the average door-to-departure time.

A check of the site at 6 p.m. on Thursday indicated that estimated wait time to see a health care professional was 17 minutes, just three minutes north of the annual average wait time at St. Joe’s. Door-to-door was 2 hours and 29 minutes.

In a real emergency, I’m not sure how many people would call up the site to see if it’s worth the wait. But, it could be useful if, say, your husband falls off a ladder and needs a few stitches, but you need to get back home in an hour to put dinner in the oven.