To examine the length of stay (LOS), and its influencing factors, at the Emergency Department (ED) among elderly patients admitted to the geriatric, internal medicine or neurology department.

We retrospectively obtained data of all consecutive elderly patients admitted from the ED to the geriatric, internal medicine or neurology department in University Medical Centre Utrecht, and Rijnstate Hospital, a non-academic teaching hospital, between January 1st, 2013 and May 1st, 2013.

In total 1028 patients met the inclusion criteria. The median LOS at the ED was 243minutes (range: 21–728). Patients admitted to the neurology department had a significant shorter LOS at the ED. Factors significantly associated with a longer LOS at the ED were daytime arrival at the ED, a low triage urgency, more specialists involved, more diagnostics requested and a long time between request and execution of admission. Patients had a shorter LOS when arriving at the ED in the evening or night, high urgency at triage, less specialists involved and less diagnostic tests were performed.

No article has been published which compared the elderly admitted to different departments. The LOS of elderly at the ED in this study was shorter than in found published data.

The median LOS at the ED for elderly patients was over four hours. To reduce this time an accurate referral, less diagnostic tests and timely transfer to the ward might be beneficial.