Philly Inquirer: Why The Emergency Room Is Always Crowded And What We Can Do About It | Opinion
By Ari Friedman and Mark Pauly:
“For decades ever more patients have been arriving at emergency departments (EDs). As concern has mounted, and emergency department crowding – most evident in wait times – has increased, fingers have been pointed. Health systems, politicians and researchers have blamed the decline of primary care, “inappropriate” use of the ED, a fragmented health system, and more recently, social determinants of health.
The solutions offered follow from these diagnoses. Improve primary care access, encourage patients and their doctors to use more primary care, penalize patients who are deemed retrospectively by simple algorithms to have used the ED inappropriately, improve care coordination, and improve social determinants of health by actions like paying for housing or transportation.”
Read more at The Philadelphia Inquirer