Emergency Department (ED) Wait Time
Average time from patient arrival to being seen by a clinician
What is Emergency Department (ED) Wait Time?
Emergency department wait time is the average time patients wait before being seen or dealt with in an emergency department. It shows how quickly urgent care is delivered.
Long waits harm patients and affect confidence in the service, so waiting time is one of the most watched health measures.
How this KPI is measured
- Function
- Operations & Supply Chain
- Sub-function
- Patient Flow
- Industry
- Healthcare
- Type
- Lagging
- Impact
- Operational
- Unit
- hrs/min
- Measurement frequency
- Daily / Weekly
- Formula
- Sum of patient wait times / Number of ED attendances
How to calculate it
Add up patient wait times and divide by the number of emergency department attendances.
For example, if 500 attendances had a combined wait of 1,000 hours, the average is 2 hours.
Define the start and end of the wait, such as arrival to first clinical assessment or to discharge, and report the longest waits as well as the average.
Where it is used
Monitoring access to care
Track waiting.
Improving flow
Find bottlenecks.
Meeting national standards
Report performance.
How to improve it
Tips and common mistakes
- Average times can hide very long waits. Report the longest.
- Define the start and end points.
- Patient safety comes first.
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