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.

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.

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.

In 2023, there were, on average, 422 hospital emergency room (ER) visits per 1,000 population in the United States. ER visit rates had been steadily increasing from 365 visits per 1,000 population in 1999 till a peak of 445 visits in 2017. There was a drop in ER visit rates during the pandemic, but numbers are slowly increasing to pre-pandemic levels again.

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).

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

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)

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.

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.

Data on visits to physician offices, hospital outpatient departments and hospital emergency departments by selected population characteristics. Please refer to the PDF or Excel version of this table in the HUS 2019 Data Finder (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/contents2019.htm) for critical information about measures, definitions, and changes over time. Note that the data file available here has more recent years of data than what is shown in the PDF or Excel version. Data for 2017 physician office visits are not available. SOURCE: NCHS, National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. For more information on the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, see the corresponding Appendix entries at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus17_appendix.pdf.

On December 20 2021, all estimates and standard errors for 2017–2018 were revised in this table to correct programming errors.

Data on initial injury-related visits to hospital emergency departments, by sex, age, and intent and mechanism of injury. Please refer to the PDF or Excel version of this table in the HUS 2019 Data Finder (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/contents2019.htm) for critical information about measures, definitions, and changes over time. Due to a change in national medical data coding standards in 2015, from the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) to the ICD-10-CM, the definition for injuries and injury subcategories changed for the 2017 reporting period and beyond. Results from 2017 and subsequent years should not be compared with previous reporting periods. Any observed changes in trends across this transition period should not be considered. Data for 2016 are not included. Additional information regarding injury definitions and categorization of injuries by mechanism and intent of injury is available at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/injury/injury_tools.htm. Note that the data file available here has more recent years of data than what is shown in the PDF or Excel version.

SOURCE: NCHS, National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. For more information on the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, see the corresponding Appendix entry at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus17_appendix.pdf.

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.

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.

This dataset includes aggregated weekly data on the percent of emergency department visits and the percent of hospital inpatient admissions due to influenza-like illness (ILI), COVID-19, influenza, RSV, and acute respiratory illness. The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) collects data for Emergency Department visits to all 185 acute care hospitals in Illinois. The data are submitted from IDPH to the CDC’s BioSense Platform for access and analysis by health departments via the ESSENCE system. The CDC National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) utilizes diagnostic codes and clinical terms to create definitions for diagnosed COVID-19, influenza, RSV, and acute respiratory illness. For more information on diagnostic codes and clinical terms used, visit: https://www.cdc.gov/nssp/php/onboarding-resources/companion-guide-ed-data-respiratory-illness.html The data is characterized by selected demographic groups including age group and race/ethnicity. The dataset also includes percent of weekly outpatient visits due to ILI as reported by several outpatient clinics throughout Chicago that participate in CDC’s Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network (ILINet). For more information on ESSENCE, see https://www.dph.illinois.gov/data-statistics/syndromic-surveillance For more information on ILINet, see https://www.cdc.gov/fluview/overview/index.html#cdc_generic_section_3-outpatient-illness-surveillance All data are provisional and subject to change. Information is updated as additional details are received. At any given time, this dataset reflects data currently known to CDPH. Numbers in this dataset may differ from other public sources.

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

Data source: Declaration data of medical service points of insurance medical service institutionsNumerator: Number of instances with 0 days difference between two emergency room visitsDenominator: Total emergency room visitsCalculation formula: (Numerator / Denominator) x 100%

Data source: Medical service point declaration data from insurance medical service providersNumerator: Number of cases returning to the same hospital emergency room within three daysDenominator: Number of discharged casesCalculation formula: (Numerator / Denominator) X 100%

Archived as of 6/26/2025: The datasets will no longer receive updates but the historical data will continue to be available for download. This dataset provides information related to emergency visit claims. It contains information about the total number of patients, total number of claims, and dollar amount paid, grouped by provider and age group of the recipient Restricted to claims with service date between 01/2012 to 12/2017. Restricted to top 100 most frequent primary diagnostic codes in ER claims from 2012 - 2017. ER claims are defined as claims with CPT codes 99281, 99282, 99283, 99284, and 99285. Providers are billing providers. If multiple diagnostic codes are attached to a claim, primary diagnosis is used.This data is for research purposes and is not intended to be used for reporting. Due to differences in geographic aggregation, time period considerations, and units of analysis, these numbers may differ from those reported by FSSA.

Total emergency department visits, and visits and admissions for influenza-like and/or pneumonia illness by modified ZIP code tabulation area of patient residence.

Emergency Department Visits Related To Mental Health Conditions - This indicator shows the rate of emergency department visits related to mental health disorders (per 100,000 population). Mental health problems can place a heavy burden on the healthcare system, particularly when persons in crisis utilize emergency departments instead of other sources of care when available. In Maryland, there were 207,650 mental health disorder-related emergency department visits in 2014.Diagnoses include adjustment disorders, anxiety disorders, attention deficit disorders, disruptive behavior disorders, mood disorders, personality disorders, schizophrenia, and other psychotic disorders, suicide and intentional self-inflicted injury and miscellaneous mental disorders.