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Waiting rooms are the worst. I'm so glad we finally have the technology to allow us to check in from home and completely avoid waiting rooms.
It's likely that this was probably an ER visit. That means they still would've had to wait in the ER waiting room in order of importance.
The ER staff make educated guesses of how important it is someone gets seen right now based on reported symptoms, reported recent travels, temperature, etc.. Then people get seen in order from (for lack of a better phrase) most likely to die right now to least likely. Sometimes, the ER waiting room staff get it wrong, sometimes the patient isn't entirely honest, and sometimes symptoms unexpectedly worsen or change while the patient is in the waiting room.
Another scenario: if this wasn't an ER visit but instead a scheduled hospital visit, they likely still would've had to wait. They could probably fill out the required forms online, but they probably still would've had to wait until a doctor was actually available to see them, which could take a while. Doctors are almost never on time for appointments, mainly because they can only roughly estimate how long each appointment will actually take, and that's arguably more true for hospitals than it is for your normal neighborhood doctor.
All that to say that, unfortunately, hospital waiting rooms typically aren't very avoidable.
My local US Hospital has check in online for ER visits and then wait in car to be told to come in. You can't always do that if you get brought in a ambulance but for a broken arm or leg you can check in online and wait in your car.
Ah, that's different from what I was thinking of, which was filling out the paperwork ahead of time online and then going in for your appointment on the day of.
Not without a total overhaul of the intake process and a redesign of the necessary infrastructure, at least. Controlled access, keeping patients separate, delays to change the air and sanitize each room before a new patient is admitted, etcetera.
It sounds both practical and doable to me, but also expensive.