Decreasing Low Acuity Pediatric Emergency Room Visits with Increased Clinic Access and Improved Parent Education

The goal of this study was to decrease avoidable, low-acuity emergency department (ED) use among pediatric patients at Coastal Family Medicine. The rationale behind this focus was to improve continuity for our patients while decreasing the cost burden for low-acuity ED visits. The family medicine residency clinic pediatric panel has grown by 35% over the past 3 years, bringing this issue of same-day acute access in our clinic to the forefront.

A survey was created to better understand the needs of our high users of the ED. The survey identified that patients believed the ED provided better same-day access than our clinic during the daytime hours, 8 am-5 pm, Monday-Friday. By using this data, along with a literature review and a community practice review, a business-hour walk-in clinic for ages 0 years to 18 years was started to improve access. Clinic posters, revised scripting for office staff, phone room staff, and our after-hour triage line as well as bookmarks advertising the walk-in clinic given during well-child checks were created to address parent education. Pediatric ED data generated through our electronic medical record as well as through Medicaid reimbursement data framed the scope of this issue as significant. This was used to monitor pediatric ED visits following interventions as well.

Over the initial 3 months of interventions, pediatric ED use decreased by 62 visits compared with the prior year. The low-acuity diagnoses of upper respiratory infections decreased by 43.7% (71 to 40 visits) and fever decreased by 50.0% (14 to 7 visits) from the same 3 months the year prior. This decrease was sustained when examined during year 3. Over the next 12 months, there were 284 (29.8%) less visits to the ED with low-acuity diagnoses. This calculates to approximately $300,000 saved to the Medicaid system. During this time frame, our pediatric panel increased by 200 patients.

Increasing access and improving patient education decreased low-acuity pediatric ED visits in our clinic. This combination of interventions worked well in our community and has been shown to help optimize the setting in which pediatric patients are seen.