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A narrative review of literature exploring patient triage found that structured, evidence-based systems that differentiate between emergency departments (EDs), urgent care (UC), and primary care can be useful in scaling down the inappropriate use of EDs. Published in Cureus, the editorial concluded that the specificity of triage systems in terms of identifying true ED cases ranges from 85-95%. Additionally, the author found several features of UC visits that were superior to comparable ED metrics.
Urgent care:
- <1% adverse events
- 2-4% return within 72 hours
- 1-2% diagnostic errors
- 82-87% antibiotic appropriateness
- 85-92% patient satisfaction scores
Triaging patients to UC rather than EDs can yield a savings of $800 (for Medicaid members) to $1,800 (for commercially insured members) per visit, the author notes. Meanwhile, less than 5% of typical UC cases are transferred to EDs.
That’s right: What’s good to see is that the author, Dianna Ehlert, NP, from the Wayne State University Detroit Medical Center, also presented a definition of UC that is aligned well with how UC defines itself in the healthcare ecosystem.