Patients increasingly use the emergency department (ED) for routine care, and while many hospitals try to reduce such use, some providers adapt their EDs to non-emergency uses, according to National Public Radio.
Nearly half of recent ED patients went for non-urgent care, many of whom have insurance coverage, according to the article. Rather than simply focusing on their efforts to keep non-emergency patients out of the ED, healthcare providers should also understand that many patients visit the ED because traditional providers are too far away or not open, Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told NPR.
