Health care providers are increasingly using alternative primary
care settings, especially urgent care clinics, to capture an
after-hours market and divert traffic from emergency rooms to
control rising medical costs.
While some ERs in California thrive, others are feeling financial
pressure.
Patients in California may find a shuttered glass door the next
time they seek out emergency care, as hospitals across the state
close emergency rooms.
October 18, 2011San Francisco Chronicle, October 17, 2011
New hospital data show an increase in emergency room visits, a
jump physicians attribute to both a swelling of demand for
services and improvements that allow emergency departments to
treat patients faster.
September 11, 2011Sacramento Business Journal, Aug. 26, 2011
If you’ve been to a hospital emergency room (ER) lately, you may
have seen a crowded waiting room or had to wait to see an ER
physician. That’s because there have been a record number of
people visiting California’s hospital emergency rooms.
August 3, 2011Wall Street Journal, August, 2, 2011
Hospitals are tackling a dangerous and costly side effect of
emergency room overcrowding and long wait times through
lean-management principles pioneered by such companies as Toyota
Motor Corp.
A study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association found that about one-third of U.S. emergency
departments closed during a 20-year period ending in 2009.
According to UC-San Francisco researchers who conducted the
study, the ED closures predominately affected safety-net
hospitals that see a large proportion of low-income patients.
In a California Healthline Special Report by Kelly Wilkinson,
experts discussed some of the factors that likely contributed to
the recent decline in EDs.
Emergency departments are struggling to keep up with demand,
serving a growing number of people at the same time that their
numbers are shrinking. One increasingly popular option to improve
access to services is the freestanding emergency department, a
facility that, as its name suggests, isn’t physically located
with a hospital.
Hospital emergency rooms, particularly those serving the urban
poor, are closing at an alarming rate even as emergency visits
are rising, according to a report published on Tuesday.
Emergency physicians have sounded another warning cry about
overcrowding following results from a March survey showing that
80% of their departments have seen increases in visits in the
last year.
At Sierra View the average time in the ER is between 4.4 and 5
hours. That is the time from arrival to departure. But, on a
light day that visit may be less than an hour and on a busy day
could be more than 8 hours. The national average for length of
stay is 5.6 hours.
December 22, 2010Kaiser Health News, December 17, 2010
Insuring more Americans will help keep people out of the
emergency room and thereby cut costs, some advocates of the new
health law said during the debate on it. But those on the ER
frontlines beg to differ. Two-thirds of emergency department
administrators believe that the law will increase their patient
volume.
November 30, 2010California Healthline Sacramento Bureau, November 29, 2010
The state’s emergency care system is in critical condition,
according to Andrea Brault, head of the California chapter of the
American College of Emergency Physicians.
November 30, 2010HealthLeaders Media, November 29, 2010
Emergency department directors are reporting inadequate on-call
trauma coverage, and many report a loss or downgrade of their
hospitals’ trauma center designations, according to a survey in
the journal Academic Emergency Medicine.
November 16, 2010San Diego Tribune, November 16, 2010
When does an illness or injury warrant a trip to a hospital
emergency department? And when will an urgent-care center
suffice? A recent analysis of patient records found that 27
percent of U.S. emergency department visits could have been
successfully handled through an urgent-care or less-intensive
setting.
Knowing where to go when care is needed can help patients get the
most appropriate level of care as quickly as possible. Here are
some general guidelines to consider.
Emergency rooms, the only choice for patients who can’t find care
elsewhere, may grow even more crowded with longer wait times
under the nation’s new health law.
That might come as a surprise to those who thought getting 32
million more people covered by health insurance would ease ER
crowding. It would seem these patients would be able to get
routine health care by visiting a doctor’s office, as most of the
insured do.
Hospital emergency rooms are grappling with an alarming increase
in the number of patients whose illnesses involve non-medical use
of opiod or narcotic pain relievers, according to two new federal
reports.
People who have a personal physician are often inclined to go to
the emergency room when they have a bad sore throat or a
persistent cough and are unable to reach their own doctor. And as
any responsible medical professional will tell you, emergency
rooms are hardly the place to go for run-of-the-mill ailments.
That is especially true now that millions of Americans have lost
their jobs and the medical insurance that comes with them.
California’s hospital emergency rooms (ERs) are there for you
when you need them most. They see everyone who enters their
doors, despite their health issue or their ability to pay for
services. Over the last decade, California has lost more than 70
community hospitals and emergency rooms, and the remaining ERs
are under ever increasing pressure to care for the growing number
of patients who are entering their doors.
More than two-thirds of respondents say the government should
provide more funding to expand services for emergency departments
so they can hire additional physicians and other staff, according
to a new poll commissioned by the American College of Emergency
Physicians.
My mother had been in pain for sometime in her abdomen and in
her back. Eventually, the pain became so bad that I took her to
St Mary’s emergency room…
