The ER waiting room is a blind spot.

In 2022, US emergency departments handled 155 million visits.[1] Many patients wait just to be triaged, a wait that often isn't even measured.[2] After triage, many wait again, sometimes for hours. Through both waits, it is hard for anyone to see who is getting worse.

PrIAge is working on ways to give ER nurses better information about patients while they wait. Nurses make the call. Right now we're talking with the people who do this work.

Talk with us See the numbers

About 34 in 100

patients with high-acuity illness were not identified as high-acuity at triage.

One high-acuity patientNot identified as high-acuity

United States · 21 hospitals · 5.3 million adult visits

Sax et al., JAMA Network Open, 2023 [3]

Source sentence
The sensitivity of ESI to identify a patient with high-acuity illness (correctly assigning ESI I or II among patients who had a life-stabilizing intervention) was 65.9%.

Some wait just to be triaged.

The wait before triage usually isn't counted in standard ER reporting. In one US emergency department, it grew sharply as the room got busier.[2]

New patients who arrived in the hour before

68%

of patients who had to wait for triage waited more than 10 minutes when the ER was at its busiest.

United States · one academic emergency department

Houston et al., Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 2015 [2]

Source sentence
When stratified by the number of new patients who arrived in the ED in the previous hour, the percentage of greeted patients who waited more than 10 minutes for triage was: 0-5 new patients - 12.4%; 6-10 new patients - 48.8%; 11-15 new patients - 64.4%; 16+ new patients - 68%.

1 in 5

of the sickest walk-in patients waited more than 15 minutes just to be triaged, longer than guidelines allow before they should see a doctor.

Canadian emergency department · Betz et al., CJEM, 2017 [7]

Some give up and leave before being seen.

When waits stretch, some people walk out. Across 10 US emergency departments, those who left unseen were more likely to come back, to need intensive care, and to die within 30 days than people who were seen and sent home.[4]

Adjusted odds of dying within 30 days

2.6×

the odds of dying within 30 days for people who left without being seen, after adjusting for other factors.

United States · 10 emergency departments · 1.5 million adult visits

Joseph et al., Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 2025 [4]

Source sentence
Independent of other clinical and demographic variables, LWBS was associated with more frequent returns within 72 hours (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 2.56, 95% CI 2.50-2.62, p < 0.001), 30-day ICU admission (AOR 1.35, 95% CI 1.27-1.66, p < 0.001), and mortality within 30 days (AOR 2.59, 95% CI 1.90-3.53, p <0.001).

Admitted, and still waiting for a bed.

Patients who need a hospital bed often keep waiting in the emergency department. At one US hospital, the longer they waited, the more likely they were to die in the hospital.[5]

Hours waiting in the ER after the decision to admit

2.5% → 4.5%

in-hospital deaths, from patients who waited under 2 hours for a bed to those who waited 12 hours or more.

United States · one academic hospital · 41,256 admissions

Singer et al., Academic Emergency Medicine, 2011 [5]

Source sentence
Mortality generally increased with increasing boarding time, from 2.5% in patients boarded less than 2 hours to 4.5% in patients boarding 12 hours or more.

Almost 14,000

excess deaths in a single year were associated with emergency waits of 12 hours or longer, across one national health system.

England, 2023 · Royal College of Emergency Medicine, 2024 [6]

Talk with us.

We're early and learning. We'd like to talk with ER nurses, doctors and hospital leaders, and with anyone who has waited in an ER. Advice, introductions and general questions are welcome too.

Calls take 20 to 30 minutes. We won't ask about specific patients or your hospital, it isn't a sales call, and we'll share what we learn.

Email hello@priage.app

Please don't include personal medical details in your email.