Massachusetts HHS Head: Let Specialized Urgent Care Help Clear ED Logjams

Massachusetts’ secretary of Health and Human Services is on record as saying urgent care is ideally suited to help reduce overcrowding emergency rooms, at least in Boston. As a guest on Herald Radio’s Morning Meeting program, Marylou Sudders referenced a recent report that patients are waiting nearly an hour to be seen, on average, in the EDs at Boston Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her proposed solution would be to have more urgent care centers specifically designed to get people with behavioral or addiction issues in and out of clinician visits more efficiently. She also cited dental care as a condition that could be addressed in a setting other than the ED. Sudders even hinted that federal funding could help the Commonwealth advance the idea, saying, “we have to get the right care at the right time and the right place. And that’s a conversation I hope we can have with Congress and within our own state.”