ACEP recently reported on new figures released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that show an all-time high number of emergency room visits in 2016 (the latest data available). In total, 145.6 million people visited ERs that year, up nearly 10 million from the year before. Even though visits are up, the number of people going to the ER for nonurgent problems actually dropped in 2016 to 4.3 percent, down from 5.5 percent the year before. ACEP also noted that wait times in the ER are down, with 39 percent of patients waiting fewer than 15 minutes and 72 percent seen in under an hour.
In his comments, ACEP president Vidor Friedman, MD, FACEP, pointed to figures that indicate approximately 67 percent of visits to ERs come outside of traditional business hours. With such a large amount of traffic during these times and an increasing number of people visiting ERs in general, the demand for emergency physicians is high.