Trends in ED Wait Times by Triage Class

Investigators used data from the National Hospital Ambulatory and Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) to determine trends in emergency department wait times from 1997 through 2006. The primary outcome was the percentage of patients who had shorter wait times than “the upper limit of the target time established for each patient at triage.” The NHAMCS triage method had four levels: emergent (seen within 14 minutes), urgent (seen within 60 minutes), semiurgent (seen within 120 minutes), and nonurgent (seen within 24 hours). Data for 151,999 patient visits were weighted to represent 539 million visits.

During the 10-year study period, ED volume increased an average of 3.9% per year, while the number of visits by emergent patients did not change. Conseq…