Busiest Time For The ER

Specialties Emergency

Published

This is a completely random question coming from someone who's not even in nursing school yet so forgive me if this is a dumb question. I've just always wondered this.

What is the busiest time in the ER? I heard that Mondays and weekends are busy but what about holidays? Perhaps after a holiday? Halloween? Christmas? Are there times of the year or seasons that tend to be especially bad? For instance during the winter when it gets dark and dreary do you get a lot of psych patients....In the summer do you get a lot of kids with injuries? Certain times throughout the day etc etc Or is it all just completely up in the air and anything can happen sort of thing?

Thanks.

Specializes in Home Health, Long-Term Care.

On 4/20.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.
On 4/20.

I'm aware of one significance of that date.

Explain?

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Sunday, after church.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in pediatrics, public health.
I work in a peds ED and Mondays are not just busy, they are hellish. We see more trauma when it's warm but the winter is a busy season, mostly with respiratory stuff: asthma, RSV, flu, pneumonia etc. Weekends are actually pretty slow for us.

I used to work in a peds hospital, not in the ED, but I know that the whole hospital and especially the ED was extra busy during the winter. The ED had a couple of overflow areas that would be open during the winter but closed during the summer. High season was November through about March or April. Census in the entire hospital was up those months.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Home Health, Long-Term Care.
I'm aware of one significance of that date.

Explain?

I used to volunteer in an ER and happened to be on that date. Which is a significant date for marijuana users. As it happens our hospital is not far from a major college campus, so it was nice and busy that night.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

Okay, I saw "4/20" and thought "Hitler's Birthday" and "Columbine."

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

The ED I'm working in Down Under is always busy. I've done shifts on the weekend and weekdays and there seems to be no pattern. The workload can be manageable when I go in in the afternoons, then heat up after 5pm - that is when people who are homeless don't have any money for food (so they concoct an injury to go to the ED); when sundowning psych patients start to go crazy; when the mums decide that baby is driving them nuts screaming cos their ears are infected & the surgeon they saw won't put grommits in; when people are driving home from work therefore more MVAs & people always seem to feel sicker (strangely enough) AFTER they have had a nice dinner, then decide they must go to the ED (even though there are 24 hour clinics open close to where they live).

I worked in another ED where I'm living, and when it was a full moon (on a Friday night) all the psych patients turned up - they were lined up outside the door!

So you can be busy anytime. It can be good & bad, but you won't ever not be busy - there is always something to deal with.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Mondays start out slow but pick up around lunchtime and by the evening we are holding inpatients. Tuesdays have the ER backed up because the holding pts don't get beds upstairs. Thursdays can be busy because people want to be seen before the weekend. Weekends are 50/50 - we get a lot of Trauma falls and MVAs. I just came off a weekend where we were very slow after busting at the seams during the week so you never know... With the high amount of unemployment and people using the ER instead of primary care physicians during the week we have been getting hammered with pts. Holidays are usually not too bad but you get a lot of nsg home pts and chest pain after people eat large meals.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

In my ER, the busy time is on a Saturday night, around 0300, when the clubs close.

That's when we get most of our traumas, either GSW, stab victim, MVA with ETOH on board, or assault. And the stories are always involving "these two dudes", that witch (replace the w with a b) or "I was minding my own business....."

Gotta love the ER!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency, Critical Care (CEN, CCRN).

I'd agree with Altra's assessment: we're always busy, but things go in cycles.

* Winter sees lots of falls (and their ugly siblings, falls on anticoagulants), respiratory crud of all descriptions, infectious disease (two big subgroups there: flu, RSV and other respiratory bugs, and rotavirus and other GI bugs), and cardiac workups (holiday hearts, snow-shoveling ACS, etc).

* In spring we get a lot of asthma exacerbation and exercise-related injury (people trying to go from couch to workout warrior overnight). SNF/ECF traffic seems to spike up in spring, too - not sure why.

* Summer is trauma and assault season, and Altra is absolutely right about both parental holidays being associated with home improvement mishaps. ("Honey, look what I built you for Mother's Day!" *crash*)

* Fall tends to look like spring, with the added fun of party traffic. (Many of the predominant ethnic groups in this area tend to hold weddings and family reunions in fall, which are always good for at least one guest developing ACS, syncope, and/or gastro.)

* Sporting events bring the business year-round. (Someone's always playing somewhere: Tigers, Lions, Pistons, Red Wings, U of M, MSU...)

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency.

Mondays, especially our Trauma Mondays are the craziest! (We share trauma with another hospital in our city every other day.) Anyway, I've never had a Monday when i wasn't fully loaded with patients. However, last monday, a trauma monday, i had a 3 minute stint where I had ZERO patients. it was the most amazing 3 minutes i had ever experienced in my life.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.
I'd agree with Altra's assessment: we're always busy, but things go in cycles.

* Winter sees lots of falls (and their ugly siblings, falls on anticoagulants), respiratory crud of all descriptions, infectious disease (two big subgroups there: flu, RSV and other respiratory bugs, and rotavirus and other GI bugs), and cardiac workups (holiday hearts, snow-shoveling ACS, etc).

* In spring we get a lot of asthma exacerbation and exercise-related injury (people trying to go from couch to workout warrior overnight). SNF/ECF traffic seems to spike up in spring, too - not sure why.

* Summer is trauma and assault season, and Altra is absolutely right about both parental holidays being associated with home improvement mishaps. ("Honey, look what I built you for Mother's Day!" *crash*)

* Fall tends to look like spring, with the added fun of party traffic. (Many of the predominant ethnic groups in this area tend to hold weddings and family reunions in fall, which are always good for at least one guest developing ACS, syncope, and/or gastro.)

* Sporting events bring the business year-round. (Someone's always playing somewhere: Tigers, Lions, Pistons, Red Wings, U of M, MSU...)

I'm betting its safe to assume you're a fellow michigander LOL, I worked downtown in the ER @ HF and agree that lineage are worst, especially the first Monday of the month when everyone gets their SSI checks etc, full moons are bad, Halloween, new years eve and 4th of July are bad but the result of the holidays tend to be boring, but the days after them are hellish!

BeLLaRN

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment