BACKGROUND: The Northern Mindanao Medical Center has set standards for quality of care as it was awarded ISO accreditation last 2015. Patient's waiting time in the Emergency Room (ER) of a tertiary hospital is a measure of effective health care delivery.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the waiting time among non-urgent adult patients seen in the Emergency Room-Triage and Ambulatory Care of the Northern Mindanao Medical Center-Department of Family and Community Medicine (NMMC-DFCM) from May 2016 to October 2016.

METHODOLOGY: The descriptive research design using time and motion activities of each non-urgent case at the NMMC Emergency Room was used. The following variables were included: the socio-demographic data as to the patient's age, gender, address,and occupation; as well as physician-related and administrative-related factors. Tabulation was done using Microsoft Excel. The Central Tendency (Mean) and Dispersion (SD,Range) were computed. 

RESULTS: A total of 1,290 patients were examined and who experienced average waiting time of 247.1 minutes. Patients were mostly in 18-30 age group (45%), females (52%), came from within Cagayan de Oro City (71%) and unemployed (67%). The longest waiting time (257.3 minutes) were handled by junior residents and seen in the Morning shift (263.7 minutes). Higher caseloads were noted in the Afternoon Shift (587 patients). On the other hand, the weekdays were busiest and longest waiting time (762 patients and 263.4 minutes, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS: The demographic profile of the youngest and female population in the study and coming from Cagayan de Oro City used the ER for non-urgent conditions and majority of patients were unemployed. The mean waiting time was 247.1 minutes. Patients managed by junior residents and seen during the Morning shift revealed longest waiting time On the other hand, Weekdays were busiest overall and were noted in the Afternoon Shift; with pronounced during the Holidays.