The amount of time most Canadians spend waiting in emergency departments to be admitted to hospital is on the rise, new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) shows.
The emergency department (ED) length of stay for people admitted to hospital in 2016–2017 was up 11% from the year before and almost 17% from 5 years ago, according to CIHI data, which is based on more than 11.2 million ED visits across the country last year. 90% of ED visits for those admitted were completed within 32.6 hours, which means 1 in 10 people waited longer.
Most people who visit an ED do not need to be admitted to hospital. When looking at all ED visits in 2016–2017, 9 out of 10 people left the ED within 7.8 hours. This means 10% of people had a longer ED visit.
“This is particularly impacting older people, and we’re seeing some noticeable patterns around wait times for evening and weekend admissions.”
The patterns highlighted in this CIHI data confirm concerns raised by some clinicians working in Canadian medical facilities.
“Emergency departments are feeling increasing pressures from rising volumes — overall, of elderly patients, of admitted patients — and capacity pressures that are delaying admitted patient flow,” says Dr. Howard Ovens, the chief medical strategy officer for the Sinai Health System in Toronto and Ontario’s provincial lead for emergency medicine. “Despite all that, emergency departments are doing relatively well at maintaining access and throughput for the patient population, but the waits for beds for elderly and many sick medical patients are very, very concerning and reflect an ongoing and worsening capacity problem in our acute care sector right across the country.”
New data on ED wait times in Canada is highlighted in CIHI’s National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) ED Quick Stats, as well as in the Your Health System (YHS) web tool, which includes facility- and region-level results for selected ED indicators. Read more here