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Globally, the average age of the population is increasing. Patients aged >65 years attending hospital emergency departments (EDs) differ from younger patients; in particular, they often present with multiple comorbidities. Our retrospective study evaluates the number of attendances at our ED by elderly patients in the 12 years from January 2005 to December 2017. Our first aim was to evaluate differences presented by elderly patients regarding symptoms, clinical features, color code (i.e. priority assigned to the case, where red is highest and yellow is medium), waiting time and outcome.

We analyzed data from 201,580 patients aged >65, divided into two groups: 65–84 years and >85 years.

Clinical and demographic data were collected from the computerized clinical record (GIPSE®).

201,580 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria, of whom 93,262 (46.3%) were male. There …