Emergency room visits are getting longer in Georgia

The median time Georgians spent in emergency rooms was 2 hours, 37 minutes last year — the latest in a steady increase from pre-pandemic times, according to the latest Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data.

Why it matters: Time spent in the ER is a key metric for tracking hospital performance, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick reports.

• Increasing ER visit times are an indication that a hospital may be understaffed relative to a community's needs or is facing other issues.

Zoom in: Georgia's overall wait time increased slightly from 2 hours, 31 minutes in 2021 and 2 hours, 23 minutes in 2014.

• It's slightly shorter than the median of 2 hours, 40 minutes spent in emergency rooms nationwide in 2022 — a number that's rising in recent years.

Of note: The CMS data, which covers more than 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals nationwide, captures the length of patients' entire ER visits, not just the time spent waiting to be first seen.

The big picture: The steady nationwide increase comes as hospitals face a staffing crisis — a problem plaguing vital industries, from health care to teachers to air traffic controllers.

The intrigue: Fears of getting stuck at the ER for hours are fueling a boom in urgent care and retail health clinics, as we've previously reported.