AI-assisted fracture detection tied to shorter emergency department stays in fracture-excluded limb radiography

AI-assisted fracture detection on limb radiographs was associated with an 8.13-minute shorter emergency department length of stay (95% CI -11.52 to -4.70) in fracture-excluded patients, without increased early revisits.

• Controlled before-after study of 8253 fracture-excluded and 6864 fracture-confirmed emergency visits; fracture-confirmed controls showed no length-of-stay change (Δ +0.37 min, 95% CI -3.95 to +4.74).
• Reduction concentrated in slow tail: no change at 25th percentile, 24.0 min shorter at 90th percentile; stays over four hours fell from 11.3% to 8.2%.
• Interrupted time-series showed a 19.2-min level drop at deployment with a flat pre-existing trend, and no significant change in controls.

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