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According to the CDC, the emergency departments in the United States have more than 155.4 million visits each year, or 47.3 visits for every 100 people.
Most of them (43.5 million) are injury-related visits. This includes poisoning and adverse effects.
In total, 11.5 percent of visits result in hospital admission and 2.4 percent end in the person being transferred to a different facility, for example, a psychiatric institution.
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Interestingly, a 2024 cross-sectional study found that emergency department doctors and patients agree on the urgency level only about 38% to 57% of the time.
The research, by Benjamin Ukert with the Texas A&M University School of Public Health and colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of South Carolina, was published in JAMA Network Open.
"This is important because nearly 40% of emergency department visits are not medical emergencies, which is very costly financially and in terms of staffing and other hospital resources," Ukert said.
"As a result, state legislatures and health insurers have implemented policies to transfer less-urgent cases to doctors' offices and urgent care centers, but clinicians face profound challenges in making this decision based on what patients tell them about their condition."
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The car was not at fault though, my daughter just thought it would be a fun idea to run home from the playground at full speed with closed eyes, to "check if she knew her way blindfolded.".
Ukert said, "State legislatures and health insurers have implemented policies to transfer less-urgent cases to doctors' offices and urgent care centers, but clinicians face profound challenges in making this decision based on what patients tell them about their condition."
This legal process—retrospective review and adjudication—is based on medical claims and algorithms and can be used to decide whether insurance pays for emergency care.
But the study's findings fundamentally challenge this plan design because, if patients and doctors provide different evaluations of the urgency of the condition, then incentives to reduce emergency room visits may not be effective.
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As I got out of bad a few months ago my neck made a "crack" that was loud enough to wake the Baby. My wife got scared about how loud it was and convinced me to go to the ER.
After a thorough exam and an X-ray, the doctor's opinion? - the bodies of Men in their forties make noises. Sometimes loud.
A complete waste of time - I apologised profusely and left feeling like a moron.
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According to the study, doctors were able to clearly sort 38.5% of ER visits into categories like injuries, real emergencies, minor problems a regular doctor could handle, or mental health/substance issues. That means some visits were urgent and some weren’t. But if you just ask the patients why they came in, only 0.4% of them could clearly sort their visit this way.
And the stories on this list vividly illustrate these figures.
"In sum, we found no association between the reasons patients gave for their visit at the time of arrival at an emergency department, their need for emergency department care, and their final discharge diagnosis," Ukert said.
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I stepped off the sidewalk wrong and rolled my ankle so bad I tore all four ligaments... Because I was distracted by seeing a really cute puppy.
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Except they weren't stepping stones; they were small utility shafts used by the water company to access the in-ground water shutoff valves for the apartments. The covers of several of the shafts had been removed and were laying a couple of feet away, and the shafts had filled to the very top with opaque muddy water, which is how I'd gotten the impression that they were flat stone. When my leg went down into the one I'd stepped in, the top edge of the metal lining of the shaft gashed the side of my leg open. I had to go to the ER by ambulance and my shorts, sock, and shoe on that leg and the leg itself of course were completely soaked with muddy, bloody water. I dripped a small puddle of it on the waiting room floor. Anyway the moral of the story is, if you're out in the middle of the night and you hear cats fighting somewhere off in the dark, just leave them the hell alone and go inside.
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Surprisingly, never graduated college...
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They couldn’t get an image of the bone because of the gross hematoma in there. They also couldn’t cast me or bind it in any way because of compartment syndrome and stuff. I couldn’t have a boot or a scooter because they’d press on the area. So they gave me a tetanus shot, because I had broken the skin on metal and mine was out of date, and sent me home to heal like a medieval peasant.
Leg up all the time, only up to go to the bathroom and shower, for at least two weeks. I inspected my leg every day and even with minimal gravity, I watched the hematoma break up and discolour everything down to blotches on the bottom of my foot. After two weeks, I went back (strolled on in lol) and they imaged again. They could see where the break was healing, so they sent me home for another week off work (more light duty at home) and that was that.
But yeah. Tripping on the stairs and banging my shin.
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…Because I tripped over a tree root while walking in the paddock.
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The hospital she worked in was in a fairly rural area so it wasn't unusual to see farmers or generally older people with little to no understanding of how the modern world worked (rural France of the 80s, yay).
Monday morning, a man in his late 70s arrives, his hand covered with a towel. So, my mom go to take the towel off and his hand under it is almost cut in half, oozing pus. He said he did that with a garden tool.
Now, the stupid begin.
Mom : But, when did you injure yourself exactly?
Old guy : Friday, in the evening. I covered it in tissues and towels all the week-end.
Mom : ... But, why didn't you come earlier?
Him : This place is closed in the week-end. Isn't it?^Isn't^it?
She also once saw a farmer who kept his boots all the time (and I mean ALL THE TIME) and when they took them off to put him in a shower, they found sprouted wheat between his toes. (But that's not stupid, just absolutely disgusting).