Observational studyBMC emergency medicine2026
The association between long emergency department stays and inpatient length of stay: a retrospective cohort study.
Observational study in BMC emergency medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPressure on emergency departments (EDs) has increased, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been limited research into the impact of prolonged emergency department length of stay on inpatient length of stay. This study aimed to evaluate whether a longer stay in the ED increases inpatient length of stay and to quantify any association.
methodsThis was a single-centre, observational, retrospective cohort study of all ED patient episodes that led to inpatient admission from January 2022 to December 2022, at a tertiary hospital in the UK. Separate bivariate analyses were performed for adult and paediatric patients. The effect of multiple confounders for the adult population was evaluated with a logistic regression model. The outcome variable used was an inpatient stay of 7 days, as this is a recognised metric by National Health Service (NHS) England.
resultsFrom January 2022 to December 2022 there 31 131 admissions from the ED. 31 020 patient attendances were included, representing 23 286 individual patients. For an ED length of stay of less than 12 h, the inpatient length of stay median was 3 days (mean 7.87 days). This rose to 6 days for patients with an ED length of stay of 12 h or greater (mean 9.94 days). Even after adjusting for cofounding variables in adults, an ED length of stay of 12 h of more significantly increases the likelihood of a prolonged inpatient stay (OR 1.30, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.23–1.37), and this effect increased for an ED length of stay of24 h or more (OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.38–1.63). In children, no statistically significant association was observed between ED length of stay and inpatient length of stay for a 12-hour threshold (Pearson Chi² test (9) = 9.4, p = 0.405).
conclusionsThis study confirms that there is a significant association between a prolonged ED stay and an increased inpatient stay for patients remaining in the ED over 12 and 24 h.
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