Quebec ER average barely moves as regional capacity trends diverge

Quebec’s reported emergency department capacity average changed little during the week of August 31 to September 6, 2026, but that provincial figure concealed much larger movements in individual regions.

Across the reporting records analyzed by ERInfo, the provincial average was approximately 82.0%, compared with 81.2% during the previous Monday-to-Sunday week — an increase of about 0.8 percentage points.

The regional picture was considerably less stable.

Among the 15 regions with comparable data for both weeks, nine reported a higher average capacity and six reported a lower one. The small provincial increase therefore reflected a mix of opposing regional movements rather than a uniform shift across Quebec.

Regional changes were much larger than the provincial shift

Several regions recorded week-over-week increases well above the provincial change.

The largest included:

• Laurentides: +6.1 percentage points
• Abitibi-Témiscamingue: +5.8 points
• Lanaudière: +5.2 points
• Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine: +5.0 points
• Montréal: +4.6 points

At the other end, Laval and Chaudière-Appalaches each recorded decreases of approximately 12.6 percentage points.

Those differences help explain why the provincial average alone tells only part of the story. Quebec’s overall result was nearly unchanged because substantial increases in some regions occurred alongside substantial decreases in others.

Capacity is a measure of reported operational load. It should not be interpreted as a measure of the quality or safety of care at an individual emergency department.

Prolonged-stay measures edged lower

A second provincial signal moved in the opposite direction from average capacity.

The average across reporting records for patients present for more than 24 hours declined from approximately 4.64 to 4.54 between the two weeks.

For patients present for more than 48 hours, the corresponding average fell from approximately 1.77 to 1.68.

The changes were small, but they add an important qualification to the provincial picture: average capacity edged higher while both prolonged-stay measures edged lower.

The data establish these measured changes, but not their causes. They do not by themselves support conclusions about staffing, demand, clinical outcomes or health-system performance.

About the data

The August 31–September 6 analysis covered 17,962 reporting records from 107 emergency department installations across Quebec.

The same number of installations was represented in the immediately preceding week, making the adjacent-week comparison more suitable for this analysis than the available year-over-year comparison.

The current ERInfo directory contains 119 reporting-eligible installations, meaning not every listed installation contributed records during the analyzed week. In addition, Mauricie-et-Centre-du-Québec had no reporting records in either of the two adjacent weeks and was therefore excluded from the 15-region comparison.

Year-over-year coverage also differs in some regions. Montréal, for example, had fewer reporting installations in the current period than in the comparable period one year earlier. For that reason, year-over-year figures were not used to define the main finding.

Provincial averages were calculated across all retrieved reporting records, with each record contributing equally to the average. Regional direction was determined by comparing each region’s August 31–September 6 average with its average for the immediately preceding Monday-to-Sunday week.

This article is based on publicly reported healthcare data and is provided for informational purposes only.