The first paper, “Emergency department ‘undercrowding’ is associated with decreased waiting times” appeared online in the journal Emergency Medicine Australasia.
The authors looked at emergency department patient numbers and waiting times before and after a nearby tertiary care hospital opened a new emergency department.
Their main finding was that after the new ED opened, their ED saw 28% fewer patients with a concomitant decrease in patient waiting times of 15 minutes from 26 to 11 minutes with p < 0.001, a significant difference.
They concluded, “Wait times are strongly associated with patient presentation numbers.” Furthermore, “Controlling demand may benefit patient processing, flow, and patient perceptions of level of care.”
