Thursday, May 19, 2011
Demand for emergency medical care increased by more than a third over the past two decades, while the number of available Emergency rooms declined.
A new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association states that urban and suburban areas lost a quarter of their hospital emergency departments from 1990 to 2009.
In 1990, there were 2,446 hospitals with ERs in non-rural areas. That number had fallen to 1,779 by 2009. During the same period, the total number of emergency room visits nationwide increased by about 35%.
Researchers concluded the ERs that closed were most commonly those serving poor communities, operating at private hospitals or hospitals with thin profit margins or competing in tough markets.
Although only 4% of physicians in the United States work in hospital emergency departments, they provide more acute care to Medicaid beneficiaries than all the other American doctors combined.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Fewer Emergency Rooms Available as Need Rises (by Roni Caryn Rabin, New York Times)
JAMA: 27% of EDs Have Closed, Mostly Due to Costs (Cardiovascular Business)
Video Interview with Dr. Renee Hsia (MedPage Today)
Factors Associated With Closures of Emergency Departments in the United States (by Renee Hsia, Arthur Kellermann and Yu-Chu Shen, JAMA) (abstract only)
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