The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), collects annual data on visits to emergency departments to describe patterns of utilization and provision of ambulatory care delivery in the United States. Data are collected from nonfederal, general, and short-stay hospitals from all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, and are used to develop nationally representative estimates. The data include counts and rates of emergency department visits from 2016-2022 for the 10 leading primary diagnoses and reasons for visit, stratified by selected patient and hospital characteristics. Rankings for the 10 leading categories were identified using weighted data from 2022 and were then assessed in prior years.

This dataset contains annual Excel pivot tables that display summaries of the patients treated in each Emergency Department (ED). The Emergency Department data is sourced from two databases, the ED Treat-and-Release Database and the Inpatient Database (i.e. patients treated in the ED and then formally admitted to the hospital). The summary data include number of visits, expected payer, discharge disposition, age groups, sex, preferred language spoken, race groups, principal diagnosis groups, and principal external cause of injury/morbidity groups. The data can also be summarized statewide or for a specific hospital county, ED service level, teaching/rural status, and/or type of control.

Emergency room visit rates across the United States show significant variation, with a national average of 422 visits per 1,000 population in 2023. This average masks considerable differences between states, ranging from 596 visits per 1,000 population in West Virginia to just 226 in Nevada. Wait times in emergency rooms While ER visit rates provide insight into utilization, wait times offer a glimpse into the efficiency of emergency care delivery. In 2022, ER patients waited an average of 38.1 minutes to see a healthcare provider in emergency departments nationwide. Interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily reduced wait times in 2020, but they rebounded to pre-pandemic levels by 2021. Most patients, roughly 70 percent, spend less than an hour in the emergency department before being seen by a medical professional. These figures suggest that despite high utilization in some areas, many emergency departments manage to process patients relatively quickly. Demographic disparities in emergency care Emergency department usage varies significantly across different demographic groups, revealing important healthcare access disparities. Infants under one-year-old and adults 75 years and over have the highest ED visit rates among all age groups. Additionally, racial disparities in ED rates are evident, with non-Hispanic Black individuals having double the ED visit rate of non-Hispanic White individuals. These patterns underscore the need for targeted healthcare interventions and improved access to acute care for vulnerable populations.

This dataset provides the Emergency Department ratio of encounters and treatment stations to represent the ED Burden. Smaller ratios indicate fewer ED visits per available treatment station and less burden. Larger ratios of ED visits per available treatment station indicate greater burden. The encounters are broken down by health-related conditions: Active COVID-19, Asthma, Cancer, Cardiac, COPD, COVID-19 History, Diabetes, Homeless, Hypertension, Mental Health, Obesity, Pneumonia, Respiratory, Sepsis, Stroke, and Substance Abuse.

In 2022, emergency department visit rate was highest among infants under the age of one. Adults 75 years and over had the second-highest ED visit rate, while the average for all ages was 47 visits per 100 people in 2022.

The U.S. hospital with the most emergency department visits in 2022 was Parkland Health and Hospital System in Dallas, followed by Lakeland Regional Medical Center in Lakeland, Florida. In 2022, Parkland Health and Hospital System recorded 226,178 emergency room visits, while Lakeland Regional Medical Center received 199,927. Both hospitals saw an increase in emergency room visits compared to the previous year and both hospitals remained top of the list in both years.

U.S. Hospitals

There are various types of hospitals in the U.S. that supply numerous services. Hospitals can be broken into the categories: community hospitals, federal government hospitals, psychiatric care hospitals and long-term care hospitals. Some hospitals provide further specializations such as trauma care or paediatrics. The total number of hospitals in the U.S. continuously been decreasing since the 1970s. In general, non-federal hospitals make up the majority of hospitals.

Emergency departments

Recent estimates indicate that among adults the age groups with the highest prevalence of emergency room visits were among those aged 18-29 years and those aged 50-64 years. Among children, the most common reason for visiting the emergency department are respiratory disorders, followed by injury and poisoning.

In 2022, there were over *** million hospital emergency department visits in the United States. While the number of ED visits has fluctuated in the past years, numbers have been steadily increasing since 2000. This statistic represents the number of hospital emergency department visits in the United States from 2000 to 2022.

The Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) was created to enable analyses of emergency department (ED) utilization patterns and support public health professionals, administrators, policymakers, and clinicians in their decision-making regarding this critical source of care. The NEDS can be weighted to produce national estimates. The NEDS is the largest all-payer ED database in the United States. It was constructed using records from both the HCUP State Emergency Department Databases (SEDD) and the State Inpatient Databases (SID), both also described in healthdata.gov. The SEDD capture information on ED visits that do not result in an admission (i.e., treat-and-release visits and transfers to another hospital). The SID contain information on patients initially seen in the emergency room and then admitted to the same hospital. The NEDS contains 25-30 million (unweighted) records for ED visits for over 950 hospitals and approximates a 20-percent stratified sample of U.S. hospital-based EDs. The NEDS contains information about geographic characteristics, hospital characteristics, patient characteristics, and the nature of visits (e.g., common reasons for ED visits, including injuries). The NEDS contains clinical and resource use information included in a typical discharge abstract, with safeguards to protect the privacy of individual patients, physicians, and hospitals (as required by data sources). It includes ED charge information for over 75% of patients, regardless of payer, including patients covered by Medicaid, private insurance, and the uninsured. The NEDS excludes data elements that could directly or indirectly identify individuals, hospitals, or states.

The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) is the largest all-payer emergency department (ED) database in the United States. yielding national estimates of hospital-owned ED visits. Unweighted, it contains data from over 30 million ED visits each year. Weighted, it estimates roughly 145 million ED visits nationally. Developed through a Federal-State-Industry partnership sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, HCUP data inform decision making at the national, State, and community levels.

Sampled from the HCUP State Inpatient Databases (SID) and State Emergency Department Databases (SEDD), the HCUP NEDS can be used to create national and regional estimates of ED care. The SID contain information on patients initially seen in the ED and subsequently admitted to the same hospital. The SEDD capture information on ED visits that do not result in an admission (i.e., treat-and-release visits and transfers to another hospital). Developed through a Federal-State-Industry partnership sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, HCUP data inform decision making at the national, State, and community levels.

The NEDS contain information about geographic characteristics, hospital characteristics, patient characteristics, and the nature of visits (e.g., common reasons for ED visits, including injuries). The NEDS contains clinical and resource use information included in a typical discharge abstract, with safeguards to protect the privacy of individual patients, physicians, and hospitals (as required by data sources). It includes ED charge information for over 85% of patients, regardless of expected payer, including but not limited to Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, self-pay, or those billed as ‘no charge’. The NEDS excludes data elements that could directly or indirectly identify individuals, hospitals, or states.Restricted access data files are available with a data use agreement and brief online security training.

List of footnotes, notes, and source information for The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS). Each row of this dataset contains the accompanying text for a footnote found in NHAMCS dataset. The footnote lookup can be merged onto any NHAMCS dataset using, DATASET_SHORT_NAME, FN_ID, FN_TYPE, and FN_TEXT.

SOURCE: National Center for Health Statistics CDC, The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS)

In 2022, of the estimated 155 million emergency department visits in the United States, 11.5 percent were admitted, while 2.4 percent were transferred to another hospital. Meanwhile, the majority (two-thirds) were referred to physicians or clinics for follow-up.

This dataset contains counts and rates (per 10,000 residents) of asthma emergency department (ED) visits among Californians. The table “Asthma Emergency Department Visit Rates by County” contains statewide and county-level data stratified by age group (all ages, 0-17, 18+, 0-4, 5-17, 18-64, 65+) and race/ethnicity (white, black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaskan Native). The table “Asthma Emergency Department Visit Rates by ZIP Code” contains zip-code level data stratified by age group (all ages, 0-17, 18+). The data are derived from the Department of Health Care Access and Information emergency department database. These data include emergency department visits from all licensed hospitals in California. These data are based only on primary discharge diagnosis codes. On October 1, 2015, diagnostic coding for asthma transitioned from ICD9-CM (493) to ICD10-CM (J45). Because of this change, CDPH and CDC do not recommend comparing data from 2015 (or earlier) to 2016 (or later). NOTE: Rates are calculated from the total number of asthma emergency department visits (not the unique number of individuals).

This dataset contains counts of hospital emergency department visits and emergency department admissions by facility.

To statistics of emergency room consultation rates - by gender and age group division

The acute-care pathway (from the emergency department (ED) through acute medical units or ambulatory care and on to wards) is the most visible aspect of the hospital health-care system to most patients. Acute hospital admissions are increasing yearly and overcrowded emergency departments and high bed occupancy rates are associated with a range of adverse patient outcomes. Predicted growth in demand for acute care driven by an ageing population and increasing multimorbidity is likely to exacerbate these problems in the absence of innovation to improve the processes of care.

Key targets for Emergency Medicine services are changing, moving away from previous 4-hour targets. This will likely impact the assessment of patients admitted to hospital through Emergency Departments.

This data set provides highly granular patient level information, showing the day-to-day variation in case mix and acuity. The data includes detailed demography, co-morbidity, symptoms, longitudinal acuity scores, physiology and laboratory results, all investigations, prescriptions, diagnoses and outcomes. It could be used to develop new pathways or understand the prevalence or severity of specific disease presentations.

PIONEER geography: The West Midlands (WM) has a population of 5.9 million & includes a diverse ethnic & socio-economic mix.

Electronic Health Record: University Hospital Birmingham is one of the largest NHS Trusts in England, providing direct acute services & specialist care across four hospital sites, with 2.2 million patient episodes per year, 2750 beds & an expanded 250 ITU bed capacity during COVID. UHB runs a fully electronic healthcare record (EHR) (PICS; Birmingham Systems), a shared primary & secondary care record (Your Care Connected) & a patient portal “My Health”.

Scope: All patients with a medical emergency admitted to hospital, flowing through the acute medical unit. Longitudinal & individually linked, so that the preceding & subsequent health journey can be mapped & healthcare utilisation prior to & after admission understood. The dataset includes patient demographics, co-morbidities taken from ICD-10 & SNOMED-CT codes. Serial, structured data pertaining to process of care (timings, admissions, wards and readmissions), physiology readings (NEWS2 score and clinical frailty scale), Charlson comorbidity index and time dimensions.

Available supplementary data: Matched controls; ambulance data, OMOP data, synthetic data.

Available supplementary support: Analytics, Model build, validation & refinement; A.I.; Data partner support for ETL (extract, transform & load) process, Clinical expertise, Patient & end-user access, Purchaser access, Regulatory requirements, Data-driven trials, “fast screen” services.

The State Emergency Department Databases (SEDD) are part of the family of databases and software tools developed for the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). The SEDD are a set of databases that capture discharge information on all emergency department visits that do not result in an admission. The SEDD combined with SID discharges that originate in the emergency department are well suited for research and policy questions that require complete enumeration of hospital-based emergency departments within market areas or states. Data may not be available for all states across all years.

These data include counts and rates of emergency department visits from 2016-2022 for selected primary diagnoses and reasons for visit, stratified by selected patient and hospital characteristics. Search, visualize, and download these and other estimates from over 120 health topics with the NCHS Data Query System (DQS), available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/dataquery/index.htm.

The rates of emergency department (ED) visits in the United States varied greatly per race and ethnicity. In 2022, ED visit rates were highest among non-Hispanic Black people at 91 visits per 100 people, which is double that compared to 45 visits per 100 among non-Hispanic White persons.

From 2010 to 2016, 11.8 percent of emergency department visits for sports and recreational injuries for female patients aged 5 to 24 years were due to gymnastics or cheerleading. This statistic shows the distribution of emergency department visits for sport and recreational activity injuries for patients aged 5 to 24 years in the United States from 2010 to 2016, by gender and activity type.

In general, total combined rates for traumatic brain injury (TBI)-related emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalizations and deaths have increased over the past decade. Total combined rates of TBI-related hospitalizations, ED visits, and deaths climbed slowly from a rate of 521.0 per 100,000 in 2001 to 615.7 per 100,000 in 2005. The rates then dipped to 595.1 per 100,000 in 2006 and 566.7 per 100,000 in 2007. The rates then spiked sharply in 2008 and continued to climb through 2010 to a rate of 823.7 per 100,000. Total combined rates of TBI-related hospitalizations, ED visits, and deaths are driven in large part by the relatively high number of TBI-related ED visits. In comparison to ED visits, the overall rates of TBI-related hospitalizations remained relatively stable changing from 82.7 per 100,000 in 2001 to 91.7 per 100,000 in 2010. TBI-related deaths also decreased slightly over time from 18.5 per 100,000 in 2001 to 17.1 per 100,000 in 2010. Note that the axis scale for TBI-related deaths appears to the right of the chart and differs from TBI-related hospitalizations and ED visits.Go to http://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/data/index.html to view more TBI data & statistics.