ReviewHealthcare (Basel, Switzerland)2023
The Association between Emergency Department Overcrowding and Delay in Treatment: A Systematic Review.
Review in Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 45 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Cost of Emergency Department Boarding for Hospitalized Patients in a Statewide Medical System
The DAUM Case-management Program for Frequent Users of the Nancy University Hospital Emergency Department: Evaluation Protocol
Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effectiveness and safety of emergency department-based streaming interventions for low-acuity utilizers - systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Pooled it
- How to Adequately Report Workplace Violence in Healthcare Setting: A Systematic Review With Hierarchical Cluster Analysis of Workplace Violence Reporting Forms.Journal of nursing management · 2026Pooled it
- The Use of Machine Learning in Emergency Care Units: A Systematic Review.Journal of primary care & community healthPooled it
- Person-centred emergency care: translation and cross-cultural validation of the Australian Emergency Department Patient-Reported Experience Measure (ED PREM) in the Netherlands.Emergency medicine journal : EMJ · 2026Article
- Interpretable Machine Learning for In-Hospital Mortality Prediction in ICU Patients Using First-24-Hour Routine Vital Signs: A SHAP-Based MIMIC-IV Study.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Article
- Barriers to Protocol Adherence in Emergency Departments and Evidence-Based Strategies for Successful Implementation: A Scoping Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Building a Global Research Network for Fair, Accountable, Interpretable, and Responsible AI in Emergency Care: Protocol for a FAIR-EC Study.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Operationalising adult eating disorders admission criteria in Australian emergency departments: a clinical decision-support approach.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Trends in Emergency Department utilization by disease categories in a migrant-dense high-income setting: a retrospective study in Dubai, 2021-2025.International journal of emergency medicine · 2026Article
- A Descriptive Analysis of GP Referrals to a Model 4 Emergency Department in the West of Ireland.Irish journal of medical science · 2026Observational
- Continuous Increase in Both Waiting and Process Time in the Emergency Rooms of Abruzzo, Italy.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Impact of automated dispensing cabinets on medication administration efficiency in the emergency department.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Observational
- Association between emergency department crowding and mortality: a nationwide analysis stratified by emergency department levels: a retrospective cohort study.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Article
- A local operational definition of pediatric emergency department overcrowding: an 8-year retrospective observational cohort study from the OACS+ project.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Article
- External validation of the International Early Warning Score in non-traumatic emergency department patients: a prospective cohort study.BMC emergency medicine · 2025Observational
- Factors contributing to extended length of stay in the emergency department and potential strategies for improving patient flow in a central hospital in the Gauteng Province, South Africa.African journal of emergency medicine : Revue africaine de la medecine d'urgence · 2025Article
- Assessing the Impact of Waiting Time on Triage Color Code Assignment and One-Year Mortality in the Emergency Department: A Causal Mediation Analysis.Health science reports · 2025Article
- Physiological scoring systems for early identification of critically ill older adults in the emergency department: a prospective observational cohort study.BMC emergency medicine · 2025Observational
- Optimizing pediatric emergency triage in low-resource settings: evidence-based strategies, task-shifting, and technological innovations.International journal of emergency medicine · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Emergency department (ED) overcrowding is a global health issue that is associated with poor quality of care and affects the timeliness of treatment initiation. The purpose of this systematic review is to assess the association between overcrowding and delay in treatment. A systematic review was conducted using four databases (CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library), following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA). A structured search was conducted to identify peer-reviewed articles aimed at assessing the relationship between overcrowding and delay in treatment, published between January 2000 and January 2021. Only studies that were conducted in the ED settings were included, and that includes both triage and observation rooms. The studies were appraised using two quality appraisal tools including the critical appraisal skills programme (CASP) for cohort studies and the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) checklist tool for cross-sectional studies. A total of 567 studies screened, and 10 met the inclusion criteria. Of these studies, 8 were cohorts and 2 were cross-sectionals. The majority reported that overcrowding is associated with a delay in the initiation of antibiotics for patients with sepsis and pneumonia. The review identified that overcrowding might impact time-to-treatment and, thus, the quality of care delivered to the patient. However, further research aimed at finding feasible solutions to overcrowding is encouraged.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.