Emergency department care access

How long people wait to be seen in emergency departments (EDs) (waiting time) is a measure of the accessibility of ED care.

Waiting times measure the time elapsed from presentation in the ED to commencement of clinical care.

Measurement of time in the emergency department

Progress of the patient through the ED is recorded using 5 different time points:

Presentation time—the time of first recorded contact with an ED staff member, which may be at the start of clerical registration or of the triage process.
Triage time—the time at which the patient was assigned a triage category, which can coincide with presentation time.
Clinical care commencement—the time at which care commenced by a doctor, nurse, mental health practitioner or other health professional, which can also coincide with presentation time.
Episode end time—the time at which the non-admitted patient ED service episode ended.
Physical departure time—the time at which the patient departed the ED, which can coincide with episode end time.

These time points are used to derive the patient’s waiting time, the duration of clinical care, and the length of the emergency department stay.

Emergency department (ED) waiting time is the time elapsed for each patient from presentation in the ED to commencement of clinical care.

Explore the data

The data visualisation below present the following emergency department waiting time statistics:

Proportion seen on time
50th percentile (median) waiting time
90th percentile waiting time

The data is presented by:

Triage category

By selecting a geography in the visualisation below, the data can also be explored by:

Overall national trends
State and territory
Local Hospital Network (LHN) and by Hospital (where data is available)

National trends

Proportion of patients seen on time

74% of Emergency presentations were ‘seen on time’.
Principal referral and women’s and children’s hospitals had the lowest overall proportion of presentations ‘seen on time’ (70%), and Other hospitals had the highest proportion (91%).
The time within which 90% of presentations were seen was 1 hour and 32 minutes.
50% of patients were seen within 17 minutes, which was faster than waiting times for previous four years.
Between 2015–16 and 2019–20, the proportion of patients ‘seen on time’ has increased from 73% to 74%.

More information about the data Expand

What other information is available?

Appendixes are available to download in the Info and downloads section.

Previous reports can be accessed in the Reports section.

Further information about the concepts on this page can be found in the Glossary.

Emergency department waiting times

The data in this section relates to the waiting times of people who presented to the ED with a type of visit of Emergency presentation.

The progress of the patient through the ED is recorded using 5 different time points: presentation time, triage time, clinical care commencement,
episode end time and physical departure time, as depicted in Figure 1.

These can be used to calculate the waiting times for 50% and 90% of patients, as well as the proportion of patients seen on time.

The waiting time is calculated as the time between arrival at the ED and commencement of clinical care.

Figure 1: Measurement of time patients spend in emergency departments

Emergency department (ED) waiting time is the time elapsed for each patient from presentation in the ED to commencement of clinical care.

Waiting time statistics are presented as:

50th percentile (median) waiting time
90th percentile waiting time
Proportion seen on time

Explore the data

In the data visualisation below, you can explore 2019–20 ED waiting times by the patient’s Indigenous status and remoteness area of usual residence.

Comparisons of ED waiting times by Indigenous status and remoteness area of usual residence should take into account that not all hospital ED services provided in Australia are included and the number of hospitals reporting to the collection varies by remoteness of the hospital.

National trends

Variation by Indigenous status

Nationally, the proportion of presentations seen on time for Indigenous Australians was 76%. The median waiting time for Indigenous Australians (16 minutes) was shorter than that for other Australians (17 minutes).
For Urgent, Semi-urgent and Non-urgent triage categories, the national median waiting times for Indigenous Australians was shorter than for other Australians.

Variation by remoteness of area of usual residence

Median waiting times were highest for people living in Major cities (18 minutes), and lowest for those living in Outer regional and Remote areas (14 minutes).
Patients living in Remote areas had the shortest median waiting times for the Emergency triage category.
Patients living in Major cities had the longest median waiting times for Emergency, Urgent and Semi-urgent categories.

More information about the data Expand

What other information is available?

Appendix information is available to download in the Info and downloads section.

Previous emergency department care reports can be accessed in the Reports section.

Further information about the concepts on this page can be found in the Glossary.

An emergency department (ED) stay is the period between a patient presenting at an ED, and when that person is recorded as having physically departed the ED (regardless of whether they were admitted, referred, discharged or left at their own risk).

Explore the data

The data visualisation below presents the most recent data on the proportion of patients with a length of stay of 4 hours or less by:

State and territory
Admission status
Peer group
Triage category

The data can also be explored by:

Overall national trends
State and territory
Local Hospital Network (LHN) and by Hospital (where data is available)

National trends

In 2019–20:

90% of ED presentations were completed within 7 hours and 30 minutes, and 50% were completed within 2 hours 56 minutes
90% of patients who were subsequently admitted spent more time in the ED (11 hours 27 minutes) than patients who were not admitted (5 hours 35 minutes)
69% of patients had their care completed within 4 hours
for patients subsequently admitted to the same hospital, less than half (46%) of ED presentations were completed within 4 hours
for patients not subsequently admitted, 79% of ED presentations were completed within 4 hours.