Affiliation:
1. Department of Emergency Medicine Stanford University Palo Alto California USA
2. Quantitative Sciences Unit Stanford University Palo Alto California USA
3. Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford University Palo Alto California USA
4. Stanford Health Care Palo Alto California USA
5. Department of Emergency Medicine New York‐Presbyterian Hospital–Weill Cornell Medicine New York New York USA
6. Department of Emergency Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital Boston Massachusetts USA
Abstract
AbstractObjectiveUnscheduled low‐acuity care options are on the rise and are often expected to reduce emergency department (ED) visits. We opened an ED‐staffed walk‐in clinic (WIC) as an alternative care location for low‐acuity patients at a time when ED visits exceeded facility capacity and the impending flu season was anticipated to increase visits further, and we assessed whether low‐acuity ED patient visits decreased after opening the WIC.MethodsIn this retrospective cohort study, we compared patient and clinical visit characteristics of the ED and WIC patients and conducted interrupted time‐series analyses to quantify the impact of the WIC on low‐acuity ED patient visit volume and the trend.ResultsThere were 27,211 low‐acuity ED visits (22.7% of total ED visits), and 7,058 patients seen in the WIC from February 26, 2018, to November 17, 2019. Low‐acuity patient visits in the ED reduced significantly immediately after the WIC opened (P = 0.01). In the subsequent months, however, patient volume trended back to pre‐WIC volumes such that there was no significant impact at 6, 9, or 12 months (P = 0.07). Had WIC patients been seen in the main ED, low‐acuity volume would have been 27% of the total volume rather than the 22.7% that was observed.ConclusionThe WIC did not result in a sustained reduction in low‐acuity patients in the main ED. However, it enabled emergency staff to see low‐acuity patients in a lower resource setting during times when ED capacity was limited.