Who wants to help me with my school essay?!?!

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JoJo_fat2fab
JoJo_fat2fab Posts: 297 Member
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Hospital emergency departments continue to be used as a source of primary medical care by large numbers of the community's medically undeserved population.

What are the implications of this practice for the patients, and on health care costs and quality of care?

What would you propose as a means to change this situation?


I have such a mental block right now, it's not even funny...TY

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  • TK266
    TK266 Posts: 3,689 Member
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    What are the implications of this practice for the patients, and on health care costs and quality of care?
    1) Patients who use the emergency room for primary care tend to wait to go to long and allow chronic problems to become acute.

    2) This take away from space in an ER from actual emergencies, due allowing a simple problem balloon into a preventable emergency.

    3) Cost of ER visit is roughly 4 times the cost of an urgent care or general doctor visit.


    What would you propose as a means to change this situation?
    1) Fund more health clinics in areas with high non-emergency ER visits.

    2) Figure out a way to get more people insured, so they would go to regular doctor visits

    3) Greater education on preventive care as opposed to reactive care


    Hope this helps get the creative juices flowing
  • JoJo_fat2fab
    JoJo_fat2fab Posts: 297 Member
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    perfect, thanks
  • christine24t
    christine24t Posts: 6,063 Member
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    Hospital emergency departments continue to be used as a source of primary medical care by large numbers of the community's medically undeserved population.

    What are the implications of this practice for the patients, and on health care costs and quality of care?

    Implications - greater stress on ERs, costlier visits, less primary prevention and more tertiary care is being provided, people are not following up with PCPs, not as much time for pt education so you see the same people back. I've met quite a few people who visit the ER once a month and get refills of meds they need. That is not the way to do it. However, due to life issues, they think this is the only way, even though primary care is often cheaper or even free sometimes.

    What would you propose as a means to change this situation?

    Case managers for ER frequent flyers...follow up phone calls from the ED to the pt asking them how it is going, free bus systems for people going to medical appointments, possibly better health care system overall.
  • azwildcatfan94
    azwildcatfan94 Posts: 314 Member
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    How are we going to pay for all this stuff?

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