Figure 1.

Data processing to reconstruct crowding indicators from an individual patient’s time-related factors. Bars represent the stay of individual patients in the emergency department; the blue bar represents an evaluating phase and the purple bar indicates the boarding phase. If the patient’s stay spanned the time of the 10 min interval, the patient was added to the number of patients at that time. For crowding indicators, the average number of patients during the first 1 h and 4 h and the last 1 h were calculated. For example, in Patient C, the average number of total patients during the first 1 h was (3 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 8 + 8)/6 = 5.8 and the average number of boarding patients during the last 1 h was (3 + 3 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4)/6 = 3.7.