Annals of Emergency Medicine
Volume 51, Issue 1 , Pages 15-24.e2 , January 2008

The Emergency Department Occupancy Rate: A Simple Measure of Emergency Department Crowding?

Presented as a poster at the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine, May 2006, San Francisco, CA.

  • Melissa L. McCarthy, MS, ScD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Emergency Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
    • Corresponding Author InformationAddress for correspondence: Melissa McCarthy, MS, ScD, 5802 Smith Avenue, Davis Building Suite 3220, Department of Emergency Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21209; 410-735-6421, fax 410-735-6425
  • ,
  • Dominik Aronsky, MD, PhD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN
  • ,
  • Ian D. Jones, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Emergency Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN
  • ,
  • James R. Miner, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
  • ,
  • Roger A. Band, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA
  • ,
  • Jill M. Baren, MD, MS

      Affiliations

    • Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA
  • ,
  • Jeffrey S. Desmond, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
  • ,
  • Kevin M. Baumlin, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Emergency Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY
  • ,
  • Ru Ding, MS

      Affiliations

    • Department of Emergency Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
  • ,
  • Robert Shesser, MD, MPH

      Affiliations

    • Department of Emergency Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine, Washington, DC.

Received 9 June 2007 ,Revised 22 August 2007 ,Accepted 11 September 2007.

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 Supervising editor: Donald M. Yealy, MD

 Author contributions: MLM and DA conceived the study design and all authors contributed substantially to the study design. DA, IDJ, JRM, RAB, JMB, JSD, KMB, and RS collected the data. MLM and RD performed the statistical analysis. MLM drafted the article and all authors contributed to its revision. MLM takes responsibility for the paper as a whole.

 Funding and support: By Annals policy, all authors are required to disclose any and all commercial, financial, and other relationships in any way related to the subject of this article, that might create any potential conflict of interest. See the Manuscript Submission Agreement in this issue for examples of specific conflicts covered by this statement. Dr. Aronsky was supported in part by the National Library of Medicine grant R21 LM 009002-02.

 Publication dates: Available online November 5, 2007.

 Reprints not available from the authors.

PII: S0196-0644(07)01539-9

doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2007.09.003

Annals of Emergency Medicine
Volume 51, Issue 1 , Pages 15-24.e2 , January 2008