Emergency department volumes have rebounded since 2020, but little progress has been made to address high ED boarding times, according to a new report the Emergency Department Benchmarking Alliance.
EDBA, a consortium of more than 1,500 EDs nationwide, shared its final report on 2022 performance measures with Becker's Nov. 13. The data is based on survey responses from 1,179 hospital-based EDs and 240 standalone EDs nationwide.
Four takeaways:
1. ED visits fell sharply in 2020 but have since risen, with more EDs visits seen in 2022 than in the two prior years. Healthcare leaders should plan for ED volumes to remain stable or slowly increase over the next year, EDBA said.
2. Patient processing times continued to rise last year. The average length of stay for all ED patients was 205 minutes in 2022, up from 182 minutes in 2019.
3. Long ED boarding times also remain a significant challenge for hospitals. In 2022, the average ED boarding time was 175 minutes, accounting for about 44 percent of the time admitted patients spent in the ED. This figure is up from 167 minutes in 2021 and 121 minutes in 2020.
4. The percentage of patients who left the ED before completing treatment increased from 2.7 percent in 2019 to 4.9 percent in 2022. EDBA said this rate is unprecedented and equates to about 7.6 million patients leaving the ED before treatment was complete.