A life-threatening injury or illness obviously requires an immediate trip to the emergency room, and those patients will be seen right away. But in other instances, an emergency room visit may mean a patient has to wait to be seen. Now, patients can learn ahead of time just how long they may need to wait.

Elmhurst Memorial Hospital has made Emergency Department wait times available online. Patients can also access the wait times from a mobile device by texting “EMHTIME” to 69302.

The service will calculate the time a patient checks ­in to the time they are placed in a room and treatment begins. Times are updated every 15 minutes to provide a real-­time sense of what can be expected before visiting the Emergency Department, however it can vary due to a number of circumstances, including the number of patients who may arrive at any given time with life-threatening emergencies.

The Elmhurst Memorial Hospital Emergency Department is a Level II trauma center staffed by board-certified emergency medicine physicians and nurses specially trained in cardiac life support and all types of emergencies. The department now has private rooms with restrooms and TVs, and a decentralized nurses’ station to ensure caregivers and the supplies and equipment they need are just steps away from patients.