Data Sources & Methodology
Every figure on this site traces back to a named, publicly available source. This page sets out which datasets we use, how they are collected, how often each one refreshes, and how we compile the supplementary information — visiting hours, public transport, contact details — that the Hospital Authority does not publish in machine-readable form.
Methodology last reviewed: 20 July 2026
Where the data comes from
All primary data is published by the Hospital Authority (HA), the statutory body that runs Hong Kong's public hospitals, and released as open data through the Government's data.gov.hk portal. We do not scrape hospital websites for these figures and we do not re-key them by hand — each number is read directly from the official feed.
| Dataset | Official source | Refresh | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| A&E waiting times | HA Accident and Emergency Waiting Time | Every 15 minutes | A&E waiting times, comparison, nearest hospital |
| Specialist outpatient new-case waiting times | HA Specialist Out-patient Waiting Time | Quarterly (January, April, July, October) | Specialty waiting times by cluster |
| Family medicine clinic new-case quotas | HA Average Quota for Family Medicine Clinics | Weekly (every Monday) | Family medicine clinic pages |
| Annual service attendance and throughput | HA Ambulatory and Community Services Statistics | Annually | Service throughput comparison |
| Hospital and clinic directories — names, addresses, coordinates, clusters | HA Health Care Facilities | When HA revises its official listings | Hospital, specialist clinic and family medicine clinic directories |
How the data is collected
Our servers request each official feed directly over HTTPS and cache the response for no longer than the source's own publishing interval — polling more often than HA republishes adds load without adding freshness. Records are matched to our hospital and clinic registries by the institution's own official name in the language you are reading, so a figure can only ever be attached to the facility HA attached it to. Nothing is edited, rounded or re-interpreted in between: values are shown as published, in the same categories HA publishes them — for example Triage III median and 95th percentile, kept separate rather than blended into one number.
How often it updates, and how you can tell
A&E waiting times refresh every 15 minutes, matching HA's own publishing cadence. Each page shows the timestamp HA stamped on the feed itself, not the time you happened to load the page, so you can always see how current a figure actually is. Other datasets follow their own source's schedule: quarterly for specialist outpatient waiting times, weekly for family medicine clinic quotas, annually for service throughput. If a feed becomes unreachable, we show the last figures successfully retrieved together with a visible stale-data warning, rather than an empty page or a silently outdated number.
Information we compile ourselves
Some of what people most often need is not in any machine-readable feed. Where that is the case we compile it from primary sources, and record where each item came from and when it was checked.
Visiting hours
Compiled hospital by hospital from each institution's own published visiting-arrangement page or PDF, rather than one generic HA-wide time — arrangements genuinely differ between hospitals and between wards. Each distinct arrangement we find (general wards, intensive care, paediatric, psychiatric and so on) is listed as its own row, and where the source document carried an effective date we show it. Several hospitals currently publish their arrangements under HA's elevated Alert Response Level, which can change at short notice, so we always point back to the hospital for confirmation before you travel.
Getting there by public transport
Nearest MTR or rail station, plus bus and minibus routes, compiled from each institution's own transportation page where one exists, and otherwise from Transport Department route records and established secondary references. Entries confirmed against the institution's own page are treated as verified; those resting on a secondary source are labelled as such on the page itself. Where no reliable route information exists, we link to a maps directions search rather than guess at a nearest station that may have no walkable route.
Phone numbers and official websites
General switchboard numbers appear in no HA open-data feed; they are compiled from HA's own hospital directory pages and cross-checked against the Government telephone directory. Official website links are each verified by fetching the URL, falling back to the hospital's HA directory profile where an institution has no site of its own.
Verification and corrections
Compiled information is traced to a named primary source and dated at the point of compilation. Where a hospital's own document contradicts a broader or older source, the institution's own document wins — that rule has already caused us to replace an earlier, incorrect set of visiting hours and an under-reported list of specialist clinic services. Where a claim rests only on a secondary source, we say so on the page instead of presenting it with the same confidence as a verified one. If you spot something wrong, please tell us: corrections are acknowledged within two working days, and resolved or explained within five.
Report a correction →Limits of this data
- Waiting times are aggregate figures over a recent period. They are not your queue position and not a prediction of how long you personally will wait — triage is decided on-site by clinical staff after you arrive.
- This is an independent information platform. It is not an official Hospital Authority or Government website, and has no affiliation with or endorsement from either.
- Nothing here is medical advice. In an emergency, call 999 or go to the nearest A&E immediately — never delay care to compare figures on this site.
- Compiled information such as visiting hours and transport routes can change without notice. Confirm with the institution directly before relying on it.
Open data API
The combined A&E waiting time and hospital location data is also available as a single JSON endpoint, refreshed on the same 15-minute cycle, with open CORS. Names, addresses and waiting-time display strings are returned keyed by language (tc / en / sc).
Endpoint
GET /api/hospitalsOriginal data from the Hospital Authority, published via data.gov.hk