Statements

There is no question that Americans have suffered great loss of life and endured financial hardships, across all sectors, over the past 32 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontline healthcare workers risked their lives, provided care during physically and emotionally demanding situations, and …

The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) opposes emergency department wait time guarantees. Wait time guarantees potentially compromise patient care by forcing emergency physicians to reduce their attention on truly emergent patients to ensure that less-emergent patients are seen within the …

The practice of boarding patients in the ED is defined as holding admitted patients in the ED until a staffed, in-patient bed becomes available and this period usually lasts several hours (and sometimes days). Boarding is not in the best interest of the patient being boarded as it compromises their …

Background Annual visit volume to U.S. emergency departments continues to increase, The number of U.S. emergency departments continues to decrease, ED crowding is a serious nationwide problem that has multiple causes, ED crowding is a result of decreasing total hospital and health systems capa …