Waiting in the emergency department for an in-patient bed: variations by hospital type, season and day.

ore than one million Canadians are admitted to hospitals each year via emergency departments (EDs). The time that admitted patients waited in the ED for an in-patient bed following the decision to admit them is influenced by many factors including in-patient bed capacity, the size and staffing of EDs and hospitals, hospital operational patterns and changes in the demand for hospital services (Bagust et al. 1999; Chan et al. 2001; Forster et al. 2003; Rathlev et al. 2007). Based on analyses included in Understanding Emergency Wait Times: Access to Inpatient Beds and Patient Flow by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI 2007), this article provides information on how long patients waited for a bed in large community and teaching hospitals. It also highlights variations by season and day of the week.