Introduction: This report presents characteristics of emergency department (ED) visits by age group, sex, race and ethnicity, payment source, and mention of COVID-19, using data from the 2022 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS).
Methods: Data for this report are from NHAMCS, an annual, nationally representative survey of nonfederal, general, and short-stay hospitals. Data analyses were performed using the statistical packages SAS version 9.4 and SAS-callable SUDAAN. Two-tailed t tests with a significance level of p < 0.05 were used to determine statistically significant differences between ED visit rates.
Key findings: The overall ED visit rate was 47 visits per 100 people in 2022, and the ED visit rates were highest for infants younger than age 1 year (99 visits per 100 infants) and adults ages 75 and older (76 per 100 adults). The ED visit rate for Black or African American non-Hispanic people (91) was the highest among the selected racial and ethnic groups. In 2022, a COVID-19 diagnosis was confirmed for 4.8% of all ED patient visits.