COLUMBIA, Md. — A “major milestone” for Johns Hopkins Medicine after years of reported lengthy wait times within the emergency department, a 29-bed observation unit is slated to open early next year at the Howard County Medical Center.
It’s a slight delay from a previously anticipated opening of fall 2026. The hospital currently has 262 beds and hasn’t added capacity since 2009.
Can this new unit alleviate long wait times at Howard County's ER?
The unit is made possible with an infusion of $15 million from the Howard County government. The last installment was approved in this latest budget cycle that passed last month. The total cost is reported to be $28 million, with the remaining funds supplied through both the state and philanthropic donations.
The hospital did not grant an on-camera interview as requested by WMAR-2 News but did share a written statement.
“Addressing this issue is a top priority for JHM. We do not always have an open bed available for our emergency department patients as quickly as we would like,” a Johns Hopkins Medicine spoksperson said. “We do have processes in place to ensure that each patient is quickly assessed and continuously reassessed by a health care clinician during their wait to address any urgent medical needs. Our hospitals are operating nearly full, which, in turn, creates capacity management challenges.”
'Anything would have been better than I was.’
In July 2023, Lisa Whitfield returned from a milestone birthday trip in Mexico but knew something was off. When she returned home, the issues persisted.
“I couldn't do anything to take care of my son. He had to go to camp in the morning, and I woke up and couldn't care for him. So I called my ex-husband, and he came to help me,” she explained. “I'm not a person that goes to the hospital unless I'm really sick.”
She had previously brought her son to the same hospital for emergency care, and was satisfied with their quick experience.
But once she checked herself in to the hospital just 10 minutes from her home, she waited, and waited, and then, waited some more.
“There's like double-wide chairs, the larger chairs, so I can basically lay in the chair. And that's how I spent from about 8:30 in the morning till 4:00 in the afternoon, before I was actually even taken back,” Whitfield explained. “When I was finally taken care of and the doctors were looking at me like, 'You were, you're septic and like you were very close to being like ICU material.'”
Whitfield suffers from diverticulitis and had been to the ER previously for related issues.
“I honestly had never experienced anything like that at all,” she said. “There's lots of things I’d rather endure.”
A nationwide issue
While Maryland has among the longest wait times for emergency care in the country, it’s not a unique problem to the state.
“Whenever the health care delivery system is pressurized. You're gonna see it in the emergency department,” said Jon Kromm, executive director of the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission and co-chair of the Maryland ED Wait Time Reduction Commission. “We're particularly concerned about it because it can lead to avoided care, avoided treatment.”
According to the latest data available through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Howard County’s lone hospital has a median length of stay of 274 minutes, as compared to 214 minutes for other high volume EDs nationwide.
The Wait Time Reduction Commission, which convened in July 2024, has also been tracking its own numbers. It reports that from 2024 to 2025, the length of stay for adult (non-psychiatric) patients increased by 18.37% in Howard County.
While Maryland patients visit the emergency room less on average, a variety of factors can lead to longer wait times. That includes research hospitals, complex patient needs, and higher needs post COVID-19 Pandemic. Most notably, the commission has found that bottlenecks are primarily caused by shortages in primary and post-acute care.
“I think that's gonna be a really important piece of the puzzle because once we can kind of smooth out that transition of care, we're really gonna see a lot of the bottlenecks resolve,” Kromm said.
“Insufficient space in behavioral health and skilled nursing facilities outside of the hospital setting poses challenges when attempting to discharge patients and find appropriate care settings for them when they require these services,” a Johns Hopkins Medicine spokesperson said.
While it’s not clear how much of an impact the new observation unit may have, the hospital system has made other efforts every year since 2023.
Such as: A discharge hospitality suite, a Behavioral Health Unit for ED patients, a low-acuity treatment area and Quick Care Services in the pediatric ED.
“For any state to make big transformation like this, it requires a team lift and I think one of the things that's really encouraging here is that we have a lot more coordination and focus on this issue than we have in the past,” Kromm said. “And more so than I've seen in some of the other states that are struggling with the same challenge,” he added.