Abstract: Objective: To analyze the time distribution of emergency visits, aiming to provide decision-making basis for nursing managers to dynamically allocate of nursing human resources. Methods: Data of the number of visits in the emergency department of a tertiary Grade A hospital in Wuhan from January 2015 to December 2018 was retrospectively collected. Time series analysis method was used to analyze the annual, seasonal, monthly and daily changes of the number of visits and predict the annual visits. Results: The annual number of visits of emergency department increased year by year, with obvious low and peak seasons. The daily average number of patients was about 300, 9:00 and 20:00 were the peak hours. Conclusion: There is a regularity in the time distribution of emergency visits, which can be used as the basis for scientific, rational, efficient and dynamic allocation of nursing human resources.

Key words: emergency department; time series; hospital visits; human resource allocation