Emergency care

Emergency department clinicians and staff identify veterans at moderate risk of suicide, work with them to develop a safety plan, and follow up after discharge to ensure adherence to the plan and connections to community-based support, leading to better access to outpatient mental health services.

A safety-net hospital enhances access to timely specialist care by revamping its critical results reporting system to immediately notify surgical oncologists of imaging results that suggest a possible gastrointestinal malignancy.

A five-question electronic survey given to emergency department patients identifies a high proportion with potential eating disorders, suggesting the potential for the emergency department to be an effective venue for early diagnosis and connections to community-based treatment and support.

A multiagency, cross-disciplinary mayoral task force develops and supports implementation of policies and programs to reduce prescription painkiller abuse and its associated problems in New York City—efforts that have prompted many public and private hospital emergency departments to adopt recommended prescribing guidelines, resulting in preliminary indications that fewer opioid painkiller prescriptions are being written and filled in some of the city's emergency departments.

Public health and community-based agencies throughout Massachusetts teach thousands of potential bystanders how to prevent, recognize, and respond to an opioid-related overdose (including administering a drug to reverse the effects), leading to a significant decline in deaths.

Intensive, concurrent medical and behavioral health care, addiction services, and social service coordination improve patient outcomes and reduce health system use among patients who historically have been frequent users of emergency departments.

The nation's first statewide health information exchange, the Delaware Health Information Network gives clinicians immediate access to patient-specific health data from other providers, leading to higher quality and more efficient care.

A comprehensive bundle of process improvement strategies improved patient turnaround time in the emergency department, which in turn led to fewer patients leaving before being treated.

Five clinics in remote parts of Alaska and Washington state receive additional reimbursement from Medicare and dedicated Federal funds that allow them to provide around-the-clock care, leading to fewer medical evacuations (and associated cost savings), better quality care, and high levels of satisfaction in the communities they serve.

Trained emergency medical technicians use a checklist to identify intoxicated individuals who can safely be transported directly to a local detoxification facility, thus avoiding expensive visits to crowded, resource-constrained emergency departments.