• Jessica Fozard, Brent Becker, Tucker Lurie, and Aizad Dasti.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, WellSpan York Hospital, York, Pennsylvania.
• J Emerg Med. 2024 May 1; 66 (5): e581e588e581-e588.

BackgroundEmergency medical services (EMS) transporting patients to the emergency department (ED) typically call ahead to provide an estimated time to arrival (ETA). Accurate ETA facilitates ED preparation and resource allotment in anticipation of patient arrival.ObjectiveThe study purposed to determine the accuracy of ETA provided by EMS ground units.MethodsWe performed a single-center, prospective, observational study of ED patients arriving via EMS ground transport. The primary outcome was the time difference between EMS-reported ETA and actual time of arrival (ATA). The difference between ATA and ETA was compared using the two-sided Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test. Subgroup analysis was performed to evaluate ETA accuracy for specific types of transports and assess variability by month and time of day.ResultsWe included 1176 patient transports in the final analysis. The overall median difference ATA-ETA was 3 min (interquartile range 1-5 min) with a range of -26-48 minutes (Z = -25.139, p < 0.001). EMS underestimated ETA in 961 cases (81.7%), and 94 ETAs (8.0%) were accurate to within 1 min. The largest difference between ATA and ETA occurred between 07:00-07:59 and 16:00-16:59 (5 min, interquartile range 2-7).ConclusionOur data demonstrate that prehospital providers underestimate time to ED arrival in most ground transports; however, the median difference between estimated and actual time to arrival is small.Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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