In 2009 Obama made a statement about healthcare saying that “One of the areas where we can potentially see some saving is a lot of those patients are being seen in the emergency room anyway and if we are increasing prevention, if we are increasing wellness programs, we’re reducing the amount of emergency room care.”
The idea was that if people could prevent illness or injury immediately, they would not need to seek any emergency room care. However, a survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians discovered that 75 percent of emergency room doctors have experienced increases in patient volume sine the Affordable Care Act took effect. Several other surveys from Harvard and M.I.T found similar trends.
contributing opinion writer for the New York Times Ezekiel J. Emanuel believes that these trends are caused by “previously uninsured individuals (who) could now go to emergency rooms without owing a co-pay.” It’s an intricate problem but Emanuel thinks that Seattle may have come up with a solution. Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, partnered with SEIU Healthcare NW Health Benefits Trust, have reduced emergency room use among a subset of the trust’s membership by 27 percent over four years.
The solution lies in education. By encouraging people to seek out health information from websites like MyGroupHealth and providing information on the difference between urgent care and the emergency room, patients can more effectively navigate the healthcare system and cut down on unnecessary visits to the emergency room.
