Thursday, January 3, 2013

Patients with After-Hours Access To Their Providers Show Lower Emergency Room Use



From the article: "The first study to use a nationally representative sample to describe after-hours care in the US, released today as a Web First by Health Affairs, demonstrates that emergency room usage is significantly lower when patients have access to after-hours services with their primary care provider.

According to the study by Ann O’Malley of the Center for Studying Health System Change, 30.4 percent of patients with after-hours access to their primary care providers reported emergency room use, compared to 37.7 percent of those lacking after-hours access. Another key finding:  patients with access to after-hours care reported a significantly lower rate of unmet medical need: 6.1 percent versus 13.7 percent of those lacking after-hours access." Read more