Estimates of Emergency Department Visits in the United States from 2016-2022

The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), collects annual data on visits to emergency departments to describe patterns of utilization and provision of ambulatory care delivery in the United States. Data are collected from nonfederal, general, and short-stay hospitals from all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, and are used to develop nationally representative estimates.

The data include counts and rates of emergency department visits from 2016-2022 for the 10 leading primary diagnoses and reasons for visit, stratified by selected patient and hospital characteristics. Rankings for the 10 leading categories were identified using weighted data from 2022 and were then assessed in prior years.