I'm a little suspicious of how much of this is press-piece fluff, given that they make the assertion that his algorithm reduces times by 40 minutes, which is 10

I'm a little suspicious of how much of this is press-piece fluff, given that they make the assertion that his algorithm reduces times by 40 minutes, which is 10%. This means that the average waiting time is 400 minutes, or over 6 hours. While I've seen one report[1] that claims this, data from recent sources[2,3] give me median/mean times of around 50-180 minutes, which is much more reasonable. Does anybody know which is right, and if there's a real paper that lists these findings? I'd be very surprised, as other commenters have noted, if such optimization work wasn't being done already. [1] http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/13/emergency.room.ep/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/13/emergency.room.ep/index... [2] http://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/Data/emergency-wait-times.html http://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/Data/emergency-wait-... [3] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db102.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db102.htm