BERGEN COUNTY, N.J. — A trip to the emergency room could mean spending anywhere from two hours to nearly four hours at a Bergen County hospital, according to federal data highlighted in a report published Friday by The Star-Ledger.
New Jersey has the ninth-longest emergency room stays in the nation, tied with Pennsylvania, with a statewide median of three hours and five minutes, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
That's 14% longer than the national median of two hours and 42 minutes.
But Bergen County's six hospitals included in the rankings reported sharply different results.
Hackensack Meridian Health Pascack Valley Medical Center in Westwood recorded the county's shortest median ER stay at two hours and 22 minutes, tying for sixth-shortest statewide.
Bergen New Bridge Medical Center in Paramus followed at two hours and 25 minutes, ranking ninth statewide.
Englewood Hospital ranked 30th statewide, with a median ER stay of three hours and three minutes.
Hackensack University Medical Center ranked 38th, with patients spending a median of three hours and 22 minutes in its emergency department.
Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck ranked 40th, with a median stay of three hours and 24 minutes.
At the other end, Valley Hospital in Paramus recorded Bergen County's longest median ER stay at three hours and 47 minutes, ranking 56th out of 60 New Jersey hospitals.
The figures cover emergency room visits between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025, and measure the median time patients spent in the emergency department before leaving, not simply the time spent waiting to see a doctor.
Statewide, University Hospital in Newark recorded the longest median stay at five hours and seven minutes, while Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Rahway reported the shortest at one hour and 54 minutes.
CMS warns that lengthy emergency department stays can indicate overcrowding or staffing shortages, potentially delaying treatment and increasing patient discomfort.
For Bergen County patients, the numbers reveal a substantial difference between local hospitals, with an 85-minute gapbetween the shortest and longest reported median ER stays.
