Explaining why wait times can be so lengthy in the emergency room, a new study by UC San Francisco reports that emergency department capacity hasn’t kept up with patient demand in California over the last decade.
The researchers found that the number of emergency departments (EDs) decreased by nearly 4% in California, while the number of ED visits rose by 7.4%. It is the first analysis of emergency medicine patterns in recent years. The researchers also reported that the number of high-severity visits rose by nearly 68 percent, while the number of low-severity visits declined by 63 percent.
“We know that there is overcrowding in the ED,” said lead author Renee Y. Hsia, MD, a professor of emergency medicine within the Department of Emergency Medicine at UCSF. “Capacity has largely failed to match the rise in patient demand.”
The paper published June 22, 2023 in JAMA Network Open.