Putting the Urgent into Urgent Care

Getting the right care for your needs is vital. Sometimes that choice can be the difference between life and death, yet many Americans do not fully understand the difference between emergency room care and urgent care clinics. Most everyday injuries and illnesses can be addressed at an urgent care facility, but any situation that threatens loss of a limb or could result in death should be dealt with by emergency room medical care. Separating the most dire of emergencies from more minor illnesses and injuries is the only way to ensure that our emergency rooms can do what they do best: saving lives. An emergency center over-run with minor ailments cannot deal with those truly life-threatening or life-changing injuries that it needs to. The costs — in both human life and finances — are staggering.

For many patients emergency room treatment is the default option and some do not even consider urgent care clinics as potential treatment sites. The reality is that urgent care facilities often offer an even better and more timely form of care for minor ailments and illnesses than emergency room environments. For example, most (more than 60%) offer a waiting time of just 15 minutes to see a physician or mid-level care provider and as much as 65% have an on-site physician all the time. Emergency room wait times are notoriously high in contrast, especially if your illness or injury is not deemed critical. In contrast, The Urgent Care Association of America noted that roughly 80% of all urgent care patients are seen within an hour and as much as 57% are seen within 15 minutes.

Access to urgent care facilities after hours has been increasing steadily. Over 65% of such clinics are open before 9am on week days and many (over 45% and over 31% respectively) offer the same on Saturdays and Sundays. Evening services are also available with almost all centers (90.6%) being open until at least 7pm, and a good proportion (two out of five) remaining open until 9pm or even later. Given that almost half (48%) of all emergency room patients who were not actually ill enough to be admitted went to the ER because their regular general practitioner’s offices were close, the ned for access to such urgent care clinics is even more crucial. Even a modest cut in non-essential ER attendance would radically decrease the pressure on such services. A fifth of urgent care clinics see more than 450 patients per week.

The kinds of care on offer has also diversified and increased, with 70% being able to provide intravenous fluids on demand and 80% offering fracture care. Urgent care is a valid, reliable, and useful treatment option for a variety of illnesses and injuries and should be the first port of call in a non life-threatening or limb-threatening situation.