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When you walk through the doors of Michigan Medicine\u2019s<\/a> adult emergency department<\/a> at the University Hospital<\/a>, you enter a hotspot of healthcare activity. According to Dr. Prashant Mahajan, Michigan Medicine department of emergency medicine chair, the unit contains around 100 beds \u2014 not including stretchers overflowing into hallways \u2014 and sees an influx of patients that creates a scarcity<\/a> of both staff and space. Emergency department wait times, patient flow and hospital capacity remain issues<\/a> at Michigan Medicine, especially as patient volumes continue to increase nationwide<\/a>.<\/p>\n At Michigan Medicine, ED wait time is defined as the time from patient arrival until they are first seen by a health care provider. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Mahajan said wait times have increased since the pandemic due to a rise<\/a> in patient visits, increased<\/a> complexity and severity of illness and <\/a>community outpatient resources at risk<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c(Wait times) have gone up for multiple reasons,\u201d Mahajan said. \u201cThe number of patient visits have gone up. People are living longer and older, so (they) have more chronic problems. Nationally, which is also reflected here, the community resources to where the patients would need to go following either their ER visit or following their inpatient hospitalization, like skilled nursing facilities, all have been impacted because of lack of nursing in the community or lack of mental health resources in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n The Daily requested specific metrics from Michigan Medicine to better understand their capacity, including current and historical emergency department wait times, door-to-balloon time<\/a> and overall patient volume. In response, Ananya Sen, Michigan Medicine public relations representative, wrote in an email to The Daily that the requested numbers are difficult to quantify in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n