Report: ED visits climb 36 percent over decade
A new report from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics concludes that there were 119 million emergency room visits in 2006, up 36 percent over the last 10 years. (During the same period, the number of emergency departments fell from 4,019 to 3,833, once again demonstrating that where healthcare is concerned, supply and demand just don't work the way they do in other industries.)
The report, "National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2006 Emergency Department Summary," notes that while many observers--including those within the healthcare business--assume that the growth in ED visits is coming from a growth in visits by the uninsured, but that's not how it is. In fact, the data suggests that the uninsured accounted for between 17 percent and 18 percent of ED traffic both in 1996 and 2006. Nor did population growth account for the higher volume. Actually, the rate of ED visits per 100 people rose from 34.2 to 40.5 between those years, researchers concluded.
So why is the volume of ED patients growing so rapidly? Well, it may be due, in part, to a growth in ED visits from the insured. A recent study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine concluded that a lack of access to prompt care at doctors' offices was playing a big role in this trend. In fact, in 2005 about one-fifth of the U.S. population had made one or more ED visits within the past 12 months, with infants, persons 75 years and older, Medicaid beneficiaries and African-Americans having higher utilization rates.
To learn more about this these trends:
- read this Wall Street Journal blog item
Related Articles:
CDC report backs emergency department overcrowding charges
Hospitals develop strategies to cope with ED overloads
Congress takes on ED overcrowding
Study: Percent of ED charges paid is decreasing
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By Anonymous | Posted 9:00pm | August 6, 2008
Nothing anger me more than going to the ED because I have been directed to by my PCP or Pain Management Physician, and once there watch parents bring in kids who are supposed to be sick with something, and most of them are running around and playing, while I am there due to an injury which has exacerbated my chronic pain condition, and have to watch these kids go in before me, and who leave within five minutes after going in. Are hospital ED's pushing these "quick fix" kids first, while those of us who truly need to see an ED Physician must wait while these long lines of "quick fix" kids pass through first, before they realize they have a patient who truly needs to be treated by an ED Physian? And having been a former EMT Tech and ICU Nurse Tech, I know the difference between those they rush through, without realizing there are patients who need to be seen STAT, but it seems easier so get the "quick fix" patients out first without realizing they have caused a patient who truly needs to be seen, left waiting in the waiting room for three to four hours, and often admitted after being seen. How do hospitals plan on changing their patient protocol so that patients who need to be seen, can be seen much quicker? Unless you come in as a major trauma patient, cardiac patient or stroke patient, those of us who fall in between fall through the cracks and this kind of ED care MUST STOP.
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