EMERGENCY: Which patients are likely to benefit the most from emergency care?

…we identified 51 condition groups most sensitive to emergency care, conditions where timely, high-quality emergency care is expected to make an impact on mortality and morbidity.”

A comprehensive list of emergency care sensitive conditions (ECSC) developed by an expert panel to represent adult patient conditions that are most appropriate for emergency care is the focus of this research article.  The conditions were then paired with national ED utilization data.  There were about 16 million (14 percent) of the roughly 114 million total ED visits in 2016 that were considered to be ECSC.  Here are the utilization data for the top 5 most frequent of these ECSC visits:

• 10.7 percent of all ECSC visits were related to sepsis and SIRS
•   7.9 percent were related to pneumonia
•   7.9 percent were related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
•   6.1 percent were related to asthma
•   5.7 percent were related to heart failure

You can also determine those conditions that are most likely to be admitted after presenting in the ED.  Here are the 5 highest:

• 94.8 percent of patients with sepsis and SIRS were admitted
• 88.1 percent with respiratory failure
• 83.9 percent with femur fractures
• 80.0 percent with cerebral infarction
• 79.7 percent with meningitis

Other patient disposition data and median emergency department charges are also included.

Source: Vashi, A.A., and others. (2019, August 7). Identification of emergency care-sensitive conditions and characteristics of emergency department utilization. JAMA Network Open, 2(8).  Click here for free full text:  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2747479 Posted by AHA Resource Center (312) 422-2003 rc@aha.org