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Emergency department (ED) overcrowding has been associated with delay to evaluation for patients with chest pain. In a prospective cohort study at a tertiary care ED in Vancouver, Canada, researchers assessed the safety of caring for chest pain patients in the ED waiting room. Patients with potential cardiac chest pain were triaged directly to monitored ED beds; if all monitored ED beds were occupied, patients were triaged to the waiting room, where they were evaluated by emergency physicians who decided to either complete diagnostic evaluations (including electrocardiography and cardiac biomarker testing) in the waiting room or prioritize the patient for the next available monitored ED bed. The primary outcome was the rate of missed diagno…