Strong Memorial dealing with long wait times in the emergency department on Friday

Strong Memorial Hospital’s Emergency Department was very busy on Friday — so much so that UR Medicine put a note out on social media saying that wait times for people with non-critical needs were much longer than usual.

UR Medicine spokesperson Chip Partner said by no means did they want to discourage anyone with a life-threatening illness from coming to the emergency department.

“But if it’s less critical, you just need to talk to a provider, we have on demand video visits that people can be seen within 15 minutes and our urgent cares are doing fine these days,” Partner said. “So those are quicker ways to see a provider when you don’t need to be in the emergency room.“

Partner said they couldn’t say for sure whether the more crowded emergency department situation at Strong is related to a strike by unionized nurses at Rochester General Hospital, which is expected to end early Saturday morning.

In general, Partner said Strong has been able to deal with the daily influx of patients into their emergency department.

“We are managing to take care of traumatic patients, we have not seen an uptick in COVID hospitalizations here, I know that’s been an issue elsewhere in the state," he said. "So our hospital is always busy, but we’re providing good care for patients in the ED and on the patient floors.”

A statement from UR Medicine said Strong was taking steps to reduce crowding by moving Emergency Department patients who need inpatient care as quickly as possible to hospital units when beds are available.

The health system said that Strong's overall patient volumes are high but within normal ranges for their 'extremely busy hospital.'

You can get more information about video visits, urgent care and other options at Strong Hospital’s Get Care Now website.