WASHINGTON — No one wants to make a repeat visit to the emergency room for the same complaint, but new research suggests it’s more common than previously thought and, surprisingly, people frequently wind up at a different ER the second time around.
Already some ERs are taking steps to find out why and try to prevent unnecessary returns. A Philadelphia hospital, for example, is beginning to test video calls and other steps to link discharged patients to primary care.
The new research, based on records in six states, suggests patients should be pushy about getting follow-up care so they don’t have to return to crowded emergency departments.
“You need to make sure the next day you connect the dots,” said study co-author Dr. R. Adams Dudley of the University of California, San Francisco. “You cannot count on the health system to connect the dots.”
Dr. Reena Duseja’s team analyzed records from Arizona, California, Florida, Nebraska, Utah and Hawaii, among the first states to link records so patients can be tracked from one health facility to another.
