The medical care domain has always been one of the pillars of every country. Be it a developed country or a developing one, the quality of medical care offered paves the path to a brighter future for all nations. The primary challenge for the medical care sector remains the efficient allocation of resources.
Once the wastage of resources can be trapped and rectified, the perfect and optimal operation is possible. This is where most health sector caregivers stumble. With several people with less than emergency wounds or injuries seeking the attention of the emergency department caregivers, the availability of resources for people with serious injuries becomes less.
If a parallel system can take care of the non-emergent cases, the ED of any hospital can work more efficiently. Consequently, the overall quality of health care would improve in no time. This idea of shifting the non-emergency crowd to the urgent care centers affiliated with every hospital has long remained the bone of contention for many discussions.
While many thought that the shift will enhance the overall quality of healthcare provisions and reduce healthcare costs significantly, some harbored an opinion contrary to it. What the discussion waited for was a foolproof study for the same.
Recently, a team of researchers took the long pending task of finding the impact of such a diversion on medical care costs and health care service efficiencies. The outcomes of the study turned out to be quite inspiring and offered hope to the medical care sector as well as its beneficiaries.
The New Analysis
Thanks to a new analysis, a surprising revelation has surfaced. According to this recently conducted study, the emergency medical care centers save hundreds and thousands of dollars involved in the hospitals’ imaging costs every year. Especially for cervical trauma detection and tests, this amount accounts for a lump sum.
The Study
The veterans and experts from various academic hospitals of acclaimed reputations conducted a study on this matter. The researchers collected data from several patients who underwent imaging of the cervical spine region at urgent care clinics.
All these care centers had an affiliation with the hospitals to which the researchers belonged. The study focused on analyzing the data of spinal imaging of the patients who underwent the process from May 1 to August 31 in 2021.
Initially, the team of researchers divided the patients into two categories. The first category included patients who voluntarily chose to go to the emergency department immediately after an injury for cervical spinal imaging.
The second category had patients whom the physicians referred to the main campus emergency department for imaging.
The first category had 143 patients who went to an urgent care clinic for imaging and treatment. The experts conducting the study compared the wRVUs (work-related value units) for urgent care clinics or the department of emergency dealing with imaging requirements.
The team further clarified that urgent care clinic visits of the patients saved around $3696.25 over the entire duration of the study (four months).
The Findings
Marc D. Succi is an MD who works with Massachusetts General Hospital‘s Radiology Department and co-authored the study outcomes. Marc and the co-authors mentioned that urgent care clinics often lack the potential of an emergency department when it comes to treating patients.
However, many UCCs can handle quite a few injury cases if the extent of the injury is not grave. According to the team of experts, retail clinics or UCCs can handle around 13.1% to 17.1% of emergency department visits for injury treatment and injury-related imaging requirements.
The team further mentioned that this diversion could save a staggering amount of almost $4.4 billion every year.
The team of expert researchers also conducted a thorough calculation to estimate the potential saving if people switch to UCC’s radiographs for spinal images leaving the CT scan facilities for cervical imaging in the emergency departments behind. The result was quite astounding for the entire team.
They found out that this simple switch can lower the healthcare expenses within a hospital system by $437,928.
The authors further emphasized that their study clearly indicates that a shift of non-emergency cases from the emergency department to a hospital’s urgent care section can result in cost reductions and less wastage of the available resources. According to the researchers, this shift could be a turning point for the healthcare sector in terms of costs and efficiency.
At sepStream®, we focus on offering the latest technology-driven software solutions for accurate healthcare aids. With our AI-powered, intuitive solutions, you can cater to your patients more efficiently and optimally.
Our list of services includes affordable solutions that any hospital, clinic, or medical caregiver center can avail effortlessly. Accuracy and uncompromised quality remain guaranteed with all our software solutions. Explore our exhaustive collection of high-end, advanced software solutions to augment your level of health care services.