For kids, there's a second peak in the evening, perhaps because parents are getting home, doing that last check before bed. |
If we are to understand emergency department wait times in Canada, we must first understand how emergency departments are used. |
One thing that's important to remember is that these are individual patients -- your son or daughter who went to an emergency with a broken arm or your grandma who ended up there with a heart condition. |
The median wait time is 51 minutes. |
The urgent conditions seem to be seen quickly, while the wait is quite a bit longer for non-urgent cases. |
We found that over half of patients visiting emergency departments were there for less-urgent or non-urgent conditions, things like chronic back pain or a sore throat. Whereas at the other extreme, less than one per cent who visited emergency rooms were most severely ill - people with diagnoses of shock or major trauma. |
Where alternatives are available, this raises questions about whether a portion of these types of patients can be appropriately treated in non-emergency department settings, such as primary health care clinics. |