A new report from Premier Inc. titled; Ready, Risk, Reward: Improving Care for Patients with Chronic Conditions, found that coordinated and preventative care services in ambulatory care settings can avoid unnecessary Emergency department (ED) visits.
According to the Premier analysis, ED visits for people that have at least one of six prevalent chronic conditions contributed to nearly 60 percent of all annual visits at nearly 750 hospitals. More than 4.3 million of these visits were potentially preventable and equate to an estimated $8.3 billion in ED costs, which suggest that these patients may need more effective primary care services.
Premier had previously identified that potentially 30 percent of ED visits could have been treated at the primary care or other ambulatory settings.
