The first thing I noticed when I was over in europe 30 years ago, is the hospital waiting rooms are small compared to American standards in larger cities.

The reason: routine non-emergency care is handled at the clinics because those are free/inexpensive too. So emergency rooms tend to have less traffic as people don't wait as long for care. Earlier intervention = better health outcomes.

The regular clinics had very short wait times. You could get a routine appointment within a few days. The clinic was busy but you weren't waiting for 2-3 hours for a regular appointment. (Maybe 15 minutes).