Of the 14 million visits to hospital emergency departments in Canada each year, approximately one million are hospitalized. However, the route from ER to a hospital bed can often mean an exceedingly long wait. For about 4% of patients it can mean a wait of over 24 hours, for 10% more than 15 hours. In fact, the route is only seamless for approximately just 10% of patients.

You can read about this in a new report published by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), called Understanding Emergency Department Wait Times: Access to Inpatient Beds and Patient Flow. This is the third in a series of three reports which examines factors linked to the length of time people spend in EDs (emergency departments). The report is based on information gathered from 277 hospitals outside of Quebec.

(In this article, ED and ER are terms which have the same meaning)

The report states that half of all ER admissions that ended up in hospitalizations involved a wait of 1.7 hours or less, the rest had to wait longer. The shortest waits were among patients who were transferred immediately to acute care beds.

Health care professionals point out that what we are talking about here are waits after a decision to hospitalize has already been made. Clearly, some arrangements have to be sorted out in advance, but they should not take so long to get ready, they say.

Greg Webster, Director of Research and Indicator Development, CIHI, said “Experts suggest that the smooth transfer of patients to hospital beds helps to avoid emergency room crowding and ensure appropriate care for incoming patients with urgent medical needs. By measuring how long emergency department patients are waiting for acute care beds, this report offers fresh insight on the factors associated with shorter and longer waits.”

The report explains that those who have to wait longer tend to be older patients or those who have multiple health problems; both these types of patients also tend to stay in hospital for longer than other patients who have been admitted via EDs.

Other factors may have a bearing on the length of wait, such as the time of day, the day of the week, and also the month of the year when the patient visits an ED. Large community and teaching hospitals tend to have longer wait times during the daytime, on weekdays and during to period November-March.

Dr. Michael Schull, Emergency Department Physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, “Waiting in the emergency department for inpatient beds can be hard for patients and their families,” “Research shows that many factors outside of the emergency department, such as how inpatient services are organized and access to care beyond the hospital’s walls, can affect how long patients wait for beds.”

Understanding Emergency Department Wait Times (CIHI)

Written by: Christian Nordqvist