Patient Emergency Department Total Length of Stay (LOS)
Identifying Attributes
Care Settings
Country
Publishing Organisation
Type of Quality Indicator
IOM Quality Dimension
Domain
Defining Attributes
Definition
Time from when a patient arrives in the emergency department to when they leave the emergency department (some go home and some are admitted to the hospital).
Numerator
(Emergency department last contact time) - (Triage time).
Denominator
Median and 90th percentile time in hours.
Exclusions
Patients are excluded if either time stamp in the calculation is missing. Patients are excluded if their total length of emergency department stay is greater than 168 hours (7 days) or a recognised data entry error occurred.
Use of Risk Adjustment
Risk Adjustments
None
Stratifications
By metric type (median, 90th percentile), patient status (admitted to hospital, discharged home), hospital and hospital type (large urban trauma, large urban, medium urban, children's).
Collection and Reporting Attributes
Type of Data Collection
Data Collection Methods
National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS)
Frequency of Data Collection
Frequency of Data Collection in Days
Reporting Methods
Interactive infographic: focus.hqca.ca/charts/total-length-of-patients-emergency-department-stay-los/