Despite the proliferation of retail health clinics, non-emergency visits to emergency departments remain steady, suggesting retail clinics supplement rather than supplant non-emergent ED care according to a study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Study authors write, “Convenience settings create new use for three reasons: they meet unmet demands for care, motivations for seeking care differ in EDs and convenience settings, and groups of people who are more likely to use EDs for low-acuity conditions do so because they have little access to other types of care, including convenience settings.”
