Key lessons learned by regional alliances of clinicians, patients, and payers in Aligning Forces for Quality communities as they work to transform local health care and provide models for national reform.
Quality Field Notes
Hospital emergency departments (EDs) are indispensable to the acute health care system. Yet, 70 percent of ED visits are not emergencies or could be prevented with effective and timely outpatient care. This brief provides lessons and stories of success from AF4Q on how some communities are addressing this issue.
of visits to ED are not true emergencies. Coordination & transparency reduce unnecessary visits. #EDuse
Contents:
1. Reducing ED Overuse - An Overview: View topline lessons from AF4Q.
2. Lessons From Detroit: The Greater Detroit Area Health Council raises patients’ awareness about after-hours availability for primary care.
3. Lessons From Wisconsin: The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality connects ED patients with primary care medical homes through a coordinated effort in Milwaukee.
This resource guide provides links and additional information for providers and organziations interested in learning more about reducing avoidable ED use.
Read the resources
These three case studies from Albuquerque, Detroit, and Wisconsin highlight how three AF4Q communities tackled inappropriate ED use.
We sat down with Jenifer Hughes, executive vice president of Administrative Network, Inc., to find out how Detroit is implementing simple, low-tech interventions across a group of practices to help patients understand their options when they encounter a medical issue after-hours.
Read the interview
Find out how low-tech, common sense solutions achieved significant reduction in unnecessary ED visits in Detroit.
Join us for a webinar on how community-based organizations, primary care practices, and hospitals are working to reduce inappropriate emergency department utilization. Presenters will share strategies tested through the Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) program. Over the past several years, AF4Q communities have developed innovative strategies for reducing the inappropriate use of emergency departments by consumers. These efforts include reducing ED utilization for conditions that are treatable in the primary care setting; efforts by hospital EDs to redirect patients to more efficient care settings; and efforts by providers to share information on patient ED use with each other to better orchestrate patient care.
Learn more about AF4Q
Date: Thursday, October 17, 2013
Time: 3:00–4:00 p.m. ET
Following the webinar, join us as we continue the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #EDuse.
Register for the webinar
