Revolutionary New ER Cuts Wait Times

It's revolutionary to the area it's in, and it was a local news article. The article was mistaken on the type of facility in the title but not in the article. Sorry it did not meet your standards, but if you don't feel it's news worthy, you are welcome not to read the article.

This isn't that difficult of a concept nor is it new.
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I was curious, nothing more, nothing less. No need to get condescending.
 
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Hey, you brought up a local article on a (inter)national EMS news section. Sorry if my response doesn't meet your expectations of a discussion on more examples of public errors on something medicine related.


You brought it up for discussion, I'm discussing it.


:)

EDIT-- Happy face to not incur the wrath of the mods.
 
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we have an urgent care clinic for our hospital system, yet we still have one of the busiest ERs in the country and people still go to the ER and wait and wait and wait...

In theory it is great, but everyone still goes to the ER. In fact they didnt decrease the number of visits at our ER but instead increase its combined number (ERs + urgent care).
 
The ER in the name is misleading.

Like it was mentioned, when you go to an Italian Restraunt, you know you're not in Italy. But I do think you would expect more than burgers and fries--that is, italian food!

If you go to something with the name ER, I think that while its expected it might not be a Level I Trauma Center, you do expect that you can get care for a life threatening EMERGENCY (the 'E' in "ER") and not just urgent care.
 
WuLabsWuTecH said:
The ER in the name is misleading.

Like it was mentioned, when you go to an Italian Restraunt, you know you're not in Italy. But I do think you would expect more than burgers and fries--that is, italian food!

If you go to something with the name ER, I think that while its expected it might not be a Level I Trauma Center, you do expect that you can get care for a life threatening EMERGENCY (the 'E' in "ER") and not just urgent care.
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I don't think that's true. It's a cute little name. "Mini ER" MINI.. would you go to a mini anything for your life threatning emergency? Would you go to somewhere with no hospital attached (and there is no way to mistake the shopping center it is in for a hospital, you will have to take my word for it.) for your life threatning ER? Most people have enough brain power to realize that it is just being cute and is not in fact an emergency room.

If that were true, people would also bring their life threatning emergencies to anything with urgent care in the name, yes? Urgent is just a synonym of emergency.
 
Doc in the box, we have these in our area. They relieve the the over crowding of the ER's with the promise of no waits. In reality its an hour wait versus an eight hour wait.
 
Sasha said:
I don't think that's true. It's a cute little name. "Mini ER" MINI.. would you go to a mini anything for your life threatning emergency? Would you go to somewhere with no hospital attached (and there is no way to mistake the shopping center it is in for a hospital, you will have to take my word for it.) for your life threatning ER? Most people have enough brain power to realize that it is just being cute and is not in fact an emergency room.

If that were true, people would also bring their life threatning emergencies to anything with urgent care in the name, yes? Urgent is just a synonym of emergency.
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I respectfully dissent. As long as we continue to show up on scenes and ask, "What were they THINKING?" and realize that they weren't thinking, we will have people showing up something with ER in the name and thinking that while it's a smaller ER, its still an ER.

Urgent is not a synonym for emergent, emergent is more serious. Most people however, have heard it for long enough that they know an urgent care is not the ER. That being said we still do have people with chest pains or other life threatening emergencies showing up at urgent cares (we know this b/c the urgent care calls 911 every so often!). Naming an urgent care an ER will just add to the confusion.
 
When these urgent care centers started popping up in the 1980s, they had contracts with private ALS ambulances for the emergent calls and they were kept very busy with CPs, GSWs and L&Ds. They were also associated with the HMOs which wanted patients to utilize these facilities to keep cost down. Just like their "call us first" instead of 911 campaign, many of these centers fell off the map as some of the HMOs failed.
 
There are strict regualtions on what and how names can be placed within an emergency department. Alike the same as for chest pain center and so on. As a former ED manager, I can assure you there is as well regulations that are placed upon just the name Ugent Care Center.

In fact, if one want to acclaim as such there is a different set of rules and billing policies. I worked in one ED that we had to label the rooms differently and the physicians billing was totally different and as well staffing had to be differentiated.

It became such a hassle in one of the ER I managed, that we totally dissolved urgent care within the ED and placed it in another building with the charge person under the ER but separate as well. We changed the area of the ER into "fast tracks" but that is within the ED as part of the triage and that is allowed as part of within the ED scope.

Beaurocracy is think in the regulations and rules of Medicare and Medicaid, as many Medicaid will not pay for Urgent Care Center for the same injury and illness but will allow for an Emergency Department....go figure?
 
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Reading the original article it seems that Cara Fair has had plenty of experiences going to the ER if she is able to come up with an average wait time. If there were fewer people like her maybe the waits wouldn't take so long. Maybe my area is different but I've never seen anyone with an honest to god emergency that had to wait anyway. I'm glad we now have urgent care clinics everywhere, there is one in the walmart, one in the grocery store, one at the mall and many others, hopefully we can now educate people as to what constitutes an emergency that requires care at the emergency room and what is ok to take to the clinic. I understand that it's always an emergency to the one in pain and I'm not saying get rid of anything that's not an MI, major trauma etc. just saying that hang nails and toothaches don't really need to be seen in the ER.
 
marineman said:
Reading the original article it seems that Cara Fair has had plenty of experiences going to the ER if she is able to come up with an average wait time. If there were fewer people like her maybe the waits wouldn't take so long. Maybe my area is different but I've never seen anyone with an honest to god emergency that had to wait anyway. I'm glad we now have urgent care clinics everywhere, there is one in the walmart, one in the grocery store, one at the mall and many others, hopefully we can now educate people as to what constitutes an emergency that requires care at the emergency room and what is ok to take to the clinic. I understand that it's always an emergency to the one in pain and I'm not saying get rid of anything that's not an MI, major trauma etc. just saying that hang nails and toothaches don't really need to be seen in the ER.
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Most clinics and urgent cares don't take people with no means to pay, and until insurance is more affordable or to see a doctor without insurance is cheaper, people will have nowhere to turn for their sniffles and toothaches and will continue to crowd ERs.
 
Sasha said:
would you go to a mini anything for your life threatning emergency? Would you go to somewhere with no hospital attached (and there is no way to mistake the shopping center it is in for a hospital, you will have to take my word for it.) for your life threatning ER?
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People have, and will.

I was at a Care Now to get a TB test... in the 45 minutes I was there someone came in for a seizure and someone for a facial laceration that needed stitches.

Both were told "You need to go to an ER"
 
Linuss said:
People have, and will.

I was at a Care Now to get a TB test... in the 45 minutes I was there someone came in for a seizure and someone for a facial laceration that needed stitches.

Both were told "You need to go to an ER"
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I thought urgent cares could do stitching? Siezure needed ER though!
 
someone for a facial laceration that needed stitches.
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They can't suture there? We sutured at my old job.
 
I looked, pretty bad lac and considering she fell on the edge of a glass table, she needed more then just a suture.
 
Linuss said:
I looked, pretty bad lac and considering she fell on the edge of a glass table, she needed more then just a suture.
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Suture and a tetanus shot... should be able to be handled by an urgent care.
 
More like internal bleeding needing a CT scan, following positive LOC.
 
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