Introduction: In Colombia, there isn´t a tool to quantify the degree of congestion of the emergency services that apply to your reality. For this reason, this work seeks to determine if the scale NEDOCS is a valid tool to measure the degree of congestion in this environment Methods: We estimated the scale during a period of three weeks for 6 times a day at the same time in the three institutions. For validation, we compared the level NEDOCS against two Likert scales of 6 questions. In addition, he described the percentage of unmet demand and the number of complaints. Results: For the scale, the variability is explained by 88%. On the other hand, the correlation between the severity of congestion in the last 3 items of the scale with the subjective opinions was direct and significant (r = 1.000., P <0.000). We obtained a significant correspondence with the following variables: a) availability of beds (r = 0.7, p <0,001); b) Average waiting time (r = 0.56, p <0.021). Discussion: Since there is no gold standard, measurements of the scale compared to the views of staff NEDOCS show that the scale applied in the emergency department Colombians is useful to measure congestion. Special phenomenon was observed that staff are accustomed to "live with congestion, so the staff considers as congestion of the service times of high work stress.