A boarded med-surg stroke patient cost nearly twice as much a day as one on a ward
Daily cost of care per patient with acute stroke at one US academic stroke center, in dollars, by where the patient was cared for
Show the numbers as a table
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Med-surg patient boarded in the ED | $1,856 |
| Med-surg patient on a ward | $993 |
| ICU patient boarded in the ED | $2,267 |
| ICU patient in the ICU | $2,165 |
About the data
- Source
- Method
- The ratio in the note is Kent Applied arithmetic on the published figures: $1,856 divided by $993.
- Published
- Updated
Free to share and embed with credit to Kent Applied (CC BY 4.0). The source data keeps its own terms.
Facts from this chart
$1,856
a day per boarded med-surg stroke patient
A 2024 Annals of Emergency Medicine study estimated that boarding a med-surg stroke patient in the ED cost $1,856 a day, against $993 for the same patient on a ward.
Source: Canellas MM et al., Measurement of Cost of Boarding in the Emergency Department Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing, Annals of Emergency Medicine 84(4).
KentApplied54%
of 195 emergency physicians surveyed reported violence tied to boarding
In a 2025 survey of 195 emergency physicians, published in Health Affairs Scholar, 54% reported experiencing violence related to emergency department boarding.
Source: Norton, Schreyer and Kuhn, Workforce impact of emergency department boarding, Health Affairs Scholar 3(8).
KentApplied
Sources for the figures above: Canellas MM et al., Measurement of Cost of Boarding in the Emergency Department Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing, Annals of Emergency Medicine 84(4) (opens in a new tab); Norton, Schreyer and Kuhn, Workforce impact of emergency department boarding, Health Affairs Scholar 3(8) (opens in a new tab).
Related charts
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Johns Hopkins Medicine, Capacity Command Center news release (October 2016) - From the blog
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American Hospital Association, Increasing Delays in Timely Discharges issue brief (December 2022) - From the blog
Finding a place that would take the patient caused the most discharge delay days
HANYS, The scope of complex case discharge delays in New York state (2023) - From the blog
Cincinnati Children's went from 76% to 91% occupancy after smoothing its surgery schedule
Eugene Litvak, Bridging the Gap, National Academies presentation (2012); Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Achieving Hospital-wide Patient Flow, 2nd edition (2020)
Sources for the figures above: The Johns Hopkins Hospital Launches Capacity Command Center to Enhance Hospital Operations (news release) (opens in a new tab); American Hospital Association, Increasing Delays in Timely Discharges issue brief (December 2022) (opens in a new tab); HANYS, The scope of complex case discharge delays in New York state (2023) (opens in a new tab); Eugene Litvak, Bridging the Gap: Operations Management Science, Patient Safety and Health Care Cost (presentation) (opens in a new tab); Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Achieving Hospital-wide Patient Flow, 2nd edition (2020) (opens in a new tab).
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