Many of us who have been to emergency rooms in Montreal know the pain of waiting. It may be hours before we are ever seen by anyone. So we compiled data around weekly and daily occupancy rate patterns for the month of August to show you which days or which range of hours have the worst wait times for ERs.

Here we see that during the hours of the day, occupancy rate is at the highest between 9am and 3pm. This is expected, since evening is often advised to be avoided for ER visits. The simple explanation to this is that at this time only the hospital emergency rooms are available in case a medical emergency should arise. Everything else is closed at this time. Also, the day shift is out, meaning towards the evening staff is more short-handed.

One can also speculate that this is when people are more out and about. This time is also often when people are enjoying themselves by going out, and people may do something more risky when inebriated. It also may be that this is when people who have work during the day, are more available.

During the week, we see the highest spikes for occupancy rate on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On the weekends it seems to die down, until the weekdays come around again.

This is against the common wisdom that the worst time to go to the ER is the weekend due to people usually being busy during the weekdays to visit the ER, and that staff are more short-handed then. The explanation for this may be that people are simply outside more during the weekdays, while on the weekends they tend to rest, or stay at home. Therefore, this tends to create more instances of emergency. That or people simply may drop by the ER on their way back from work.

What are your thoughts on these occupancy rate patterns? How would you explain these numbers? Let us know what you think!