The increasing number of Americans seeking treatment in emergency rooms for minor ailments poses serious health and cost consequences, researchers reported Wednesday.
The University of California, San Francisco, study corroborates other evidence of the growing practice of the poor and uninsured substituting public hospitals for private clinics.Of 700 patients questioned while waiting at San Francisco General Hospital's emergency room in the summer of 1990, only 13 percent should have been there, doctors reported in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
The other 87 percent did not suffer symptoms severe enough to warrant emergency care, the researchers said.
Two-thirds of those surveyed said they had no regular doctor, and 45 percent said they came to the emergency department solely because they had nowhere else to go to get treatment.
One-third considered their medical problems as only a little or not at all serious, and 16 percent said they suffered mild or no pain.
"Once considered a source of care for major injuries and life-threatening medical conditions, the emergency department has become part primary care physician and part social worker to many Americans," said Dr. Kevin Grumbach, a researcher at the UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies.
His study confirms findings in other U.S. cities of overcrowding, long waits and widespread misuse of the emergency room for non-emergency conditions.
The study authors urge more and better coordinated primary care services for the poor.