The promise of tests and an instant diagnosis makes it worth the wait for many patients:

Matilde Fernandez, for example, woke up with a sharp pain in her stomach. At 8:30 a.m., she had called the Brookside Community Health Center in Jamaica Plain, but her doctor, who was working a half-day, was booked. The health center offered her an appointment with another doctor, but she decided to go to the emergency room because she thought she’d need an ultrasound and other tests that the health center does not provide. “They’d have to send her somewhere for another appointment to diagnose her,” said Fernandez’s son, Daniel, 15.

So, they drove to the Brigham at about 1 p.m., and at 7, Fernandez, 39, still lay in an emergency room bed waiting for the results of a blood test. She said it was worth the wait to have all the tests done at once in one place.