Prolonged Boarding and Racial Discrimination and Dissatisfaction Among Emergency Department Patients.

Importance: Emergency department (ED) boarding times have increased rapidly, but their health equity outcomes are unknown.

Objective: To investigate whether prolonged ED boarding is associated with increased perceived racial discrimination and dissatisfaction and whether associations vary between patients from marginalized racial and ethnic groups vs non-Hispanic White patients.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This is a cross-sectional study of hospitalized adults who boarded in the ED during internal medicine admissions at a large, urban hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, from June 2023 to January 2024.