From Scripps Howard news Service, as posted to the Raleigh News Observer Website:
Trips to hospital emergency rooms continue to go up, 7 percent in the last decade.
But several recent studies suggest that the ability of many ERs to treat the sickest patients is getting stretched thin.
For one thing, many people are coming in with more serious problems, particularly the elderly.
A report published this week in the Annals of Emergency Medicine notes that the visit rate for seniors, 65 and older, increased faster than any other age group between 1993 and 2003, 26 percent.
“Given the needs of this population and the nature of their medical problems, the current state of overcrowding is likely to continue to escalate dramatically,” said Dr. Mary Pat McKay, an emergency-medicine researcher at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington.
“These patients tend to be sicker and are more likely to be admitted from the emergency department to the hospital, but with many hospitals running a deficit of inpatient beds, I don’t see where these patients are going to go.”
The report concludes that emergency-room visits for patients between 65 and 74 could nearly double by 2013.
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