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ABSTRACT
This paper addresses the non-urgent use of the Emergency Department (ED) and the impact it has on both healthcare organizations and patient care. Emergency Departments are a vital part of the healthcare system seeing on average 27 million patients per year. Of those 27 million, 18 million visits are considered non-urgent. As costs associated with healthcare continue to rise, identifying ways to cut down on these non-urgent visits will benefit both healthcare systems and patients alike. This project seeks to offer solutions that can help healthcare organizations mitigate these factors in order to reduce inappropriate use of the emergency department as well as better serve the needs of their community. Overall, the goal of this project is to understand the needs of the patients within their community, reduce spending and offer solutions that are sustainable for generations to come.
Keywords: Emergency Department (ED), Non-urgent, Costs, Economic and Solutions
INTRODUCTION
On average, Emergency Departments (ED) have 130 million visits per year, according to researchers about 30% of them are avoidable (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018; Uscher-Pines et al., 2013). Non-urgent ED visits are visits for injuries or conditions that would not result in an adverse outcome if not treated for several hours (Uscher-Pines, Pines, Kellermann, Gillen & Mehrotra, 2013). One noted barrier to collecting accurate data on the use of ED for non-urgent issues is the lack of a consistent definition. Due to this inconsistency in healthcare organization terminology, non-urgent visits can be classified under other terms such as preventable or unnecessary. While the wording may be inconsistent, the issue at hand is not. The inappropriate use of the ED is causing an increase in healthcare spending. Patients who frequently seek care in this manner risk receiving unnecessary tests, procedures, and treatments in addition to overall lower quality care.
According to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, between 13.7 and 27.1 percent of patient issues could be treated at an urgent care rather than an ED, resulting in a savings $4.4 billion annually (Weinick, Burns, & Mehrotra, 2010). Research from the United Health Group (2019) estimates that the cost of covering a primary care treatable condition is 12 times higher in the ED as opposed to a physician's office and 10 times...