Median emergency department visit times vary greatly based on a multitude of factors, including facility type, patient demographics and annual volumes, data from the Emergency Department Benchmarking Alliance shows.
The data is based on survey responses from 1,179 hospital-based EDs that reported more than 35 million patient visits in 2022, along with 240 standalone EDs covering more than 4 million patients. The report segments EDs based on annual volumes, patient population and whether they are freestanding or hospital-based facilities.
Patient processing times continued to rise across all ED cohorts last year. The average length of stay for all ED patients was 205 minutes in 2022, up from 182 minutes in 2019. As with past years, the report found patient processing times are highly correlated with ED volume.
"Higher volume EDs have higher acuity, higher use of diagnostic testing, and longer patient processing times," EDBA, a consortium of more than 1,500 EDs nationwide, said in the report. "The trends related to these cohorts remain intact for 2022."
Below is the median length of stay for patients at EDs across various cohorts:
|
Cohort |
Median length of stay (minutes) |
|
All EDs |
205 |
|
Pediatric |
166 |
|
Adult |
272 |
|
<20,000 annual visits |
150 |
|
20,000 to 40,000 annual visits |
202 |
|
40,000 to 60,000 annual visits |
236 |
|
60,000 to 80,000 annual visits |
284 |
|
Over 80,000 annual visits |
273 |
|
Freestanding ED |
111 |
|
Specialty |
158 |