Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Emergency room screenings may add a healthy dose of rationality to health care
[Ceci Connolly, "Some Finding No Room at the ER," The Washington Post, 26 April 2004.]
According to this article, "ER care is both the most costly and least effective at treating the sort of chronic problems that claim the greatest number of lives each year." This is a growing problem as ER visits skyrocket across the country. In Denver, one hospital is actually has the audacity to turn away patients who do not need emergency care:
It's not the heart attacks or stabbings that alarm Norman Paradis. It's the minor maladies, the daily deluge of coughs, colds, toothaches and even hangnails that clog his emergency room.
As the provider of last resort, hospital emergency departments across America have for decades accepted thousands of truly non-urgent cases and swallowed the cost. For the most part, the patients have nowhere else to go, no insurance and no money.
That is starting to change. University of Colorado Hospital, where Paradis works, is leading the way on a controversial solution -- weeding out the people with bumps and scrapes so it can devote more time and resources to serious, life-threatening traumas and, also, to paying customers.
Officials here say its 15-month-old system of medical screening, or "triaging out," could go a long way in easing the financial strains that have forced hundreds of emergency departments to shut down in the last decade.
[Ceci Connolly, "Some Finding No Room at the ER," The Washington Post, 26 April 2004.]
According to this article, "ER care is both the most costly and least effective at treating the sort of chronic problems that claim the greatest number of lives each year." This is a growing problem as ER visits skyrocket across the country. In Denver, one hospital is actually has the audacity to turn away patients who do not need emergency care:
It's not the heart attacks or stabbings that alarm Norman Paradis. It's the minor maladies, the daily deluge of coughs, colds, toothaches and even hangnails that clog his emergency room.
As the provider of last resort, hospital emergency departments across America have for decades accepted thousands of truly non-urgent cases and swallowed the cost. For the most part, the patients have nowhere else to go, no insurance and no money.
That is starting to change. University of Colorado Hospital, where Paradis works, is leading the way on a controversial solution -- weeding out the people with bumps and scrapes so it can devote more time and resources to serious, life-threatening traumas and, also, to paying customers.
Officials here say its 15-month-old system of medical screening, or "triaging out," could go a long way in easing the financial strains that have forced hundreds of emergency departments to shut down in the last decade.
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