Federal data show the median emergency room stay at New York City hospitals was 218 minutes (3 hours, 38 minutes). St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx had the longest at 301 minutes, followed by two hospitals in Queens.
According to Patch, data from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) show that patients at some New York City hospital emergency rooms stayed close to five hours or more than five hours. In data covering Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025, St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx had the longest median in the city at 301 minutes (5 hours, 1 minute). The median across all 31 hospitals that submitted data was 218 minutes (3 hours, 38 minutes).
NewYork-Presbyterian/Queens ranked second at 280 minutes (4 hours, 40 minutes), and Elmhurst Hospital Center ranked third at 278 minutes (4 hours, 38 minutes). Both are in Queens, and their medians are about an hour longer than the citywide median. The shortest was Harlem Hospital Center at 144 minutes. Figures for each hospital can be found in the searchable table on the original article's page.
The figures measure the time from arrival at the emergency room until departure, not just the time spent waiting for care. Because they are medians, half of the patients at a given hospital stayed longer than the figure shown. The data cover patients who were discharged and exclude mental health patients and patients transferred to other facilities.
A shorter stay did not necessarily mean better performance. South Brooklyn Health, which had the largest Medicare payment reduction under the federal Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program at 2.09%, had a median emergency room stay of 160 minutes, the second shortest in the city. Among the 29 hospitals included in both datasets, the median for the eight hospitals with a reduction of 1% or more was 200 minutes, shorter than the 224 minutes for the 21 hospitals with smaller reductions. In a study cited in the original article, the share of patients whose first emergency room visit lasted less than four hours and who returned within 72 hours was 5.8%, higher than the 4.2% for patients whose first visit lasted four to 24 hours.