Abstract
To determine trends in daily emergency department (ED) visits, a preliminary retrospective study was done to analyze the relationship of long-term trends, day of week, and month of year to ED volume at University Medical Center in Lubbock, TX. Local data were collected from January 1, 2011, through December 31, 2017. An increase in ED visits from 2011 to 2014 was followed by a decrease in ED visits from 2014 to 2017. The best fit third order polynomial was “ ” with y=number of ED visits and x=cumulative day. The busiest day of the week was Monday with an average of 235.6 visits per day. Throughout the week, ED visits decreased to a minimum value of 201.9 visits per day on Saturday. The differences between each day of the week were significant (p < 0.001). Seasonal trends were present with peaks during February and September. The differences among months were significant (p < 0.001). The total variance of the ED visit data was decreased after adjusting for the long-term trend, day of week, and month of year. These adjustments remove noises not relevant to the study goal and are necessary for further studies testing hypotheses about factors affecting ED visits that may not be uniformly distributed over time.
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