Ambulance Patient Offload Time

Ambulance patient offload times — how long it takes for a patient arriving at a hospital via ambulance to be transferred to an emergency department — are the product of many factors. These include the physical layout of the hospital, the current caseload, the severity of patients’ illness or injury, and more. While everyone agrees patients should be transferred quickly, delays start with broader problems in the health care delivery system — outside hospitals’ control — such as a lack of primary care and behavioral health providers, and overuse of the 911 emergency system.