Table 2.

Estimated rates of patient movement rates (per person-hour) and the effects of the age group and triage level from the five-state Markov model.

Patient movement	Movement rate		Number of movement in a steady ER#	Effect of the triage level		Effect of the age group
	Estimate	95% CI		RR	95% CI	RR	95% CI
Triage ⟶ physician	4.224	(4.204–4.247)	—	0.962∗	0.956–0.967	1.134∗	1.131–1.139
Physician ⟶ observation room	0.099	(0.098–0.100)	6	0.673∗	0.666–0.679	1.549∗	1.539–1.562
Triage (directly) ⟶ departure	0.0005	(0.0003–0.0008)	0	1.481	0.974–1.962	1.174	0.840–1.618
Physician (directly) ⟶ discharge	0.235	(0.233–0.236)	14	1.891∗	1.881–1.900	0.773∗	0.769–0.776
Observation room ⟶ discharge	0.011	(0.011–0.012)	1	1.650∗	1.619–1.677	0.619∗	0.609–0.628
Physician (directly) ⟶ admission	0.046	(0.045–0.047)	3	0.757∗	0.745–0.766	0.830∗	0.821–0.839
Observation room ⟶ admission	0.019	(0.018–0.019)	2	0.842∗	0.826–0.856	0.910∗	0.899–0.921

^#After triage and in a steady ER system with 60 patients in the treatment bed area and 100 patients in the observation, the number of patients for each kind of movement between two states in an hour, rounded to integer. ^∗Statistically significant. RR, relative rate. The reciprocal of the patient movement rate is the mean time gap before the next patient movement occurs. An effect of greater than 1 represents an accelerating effect on the corresponding movement.