Are Low-Acuity Patients Clogging Up the ED?

Healthcare administrators often argue that a solution to emergency department overcrowding is to divert lower-acuity patients from acute care EDs to other care environments. In a retrospective study of 4.2 million visits to 110 EDs in Ontario, investigators assessed whether low-acuity patients affect the time to treatment and total length of stay (LOS) for higher-acuity patients. The authors defined low acuity as ambulatory arrival, low triage acuity score, and discharge to home from the ED.

Overall, 50.9% of patients were classified as low acuity, 37.1% as medium acuity, and 12.0% as high acuity. Mean ED LOS was 2.2 hours for low-acuity patients, 3.9 hours for medium-acuity patients, and 6.3 hours for high-acuity patients. Mean time to phys…