It’s evident through everyday experience that access to urgent care (UC) can reduce emergency department (ED) congestion and drive better healthcare resource utilization in a community. A literature review published in Cureus recently quantified this same conclusion by analyzing 10 studies conducted between 2015 and 2024, primarily in the United States, which found that the availability of standalone UC centers reduced ED visits by 8% to 17%. One cited study found UC led to a 27% reduction in non-urgent ED visits. Efficiency is also a hallmark of UC with many citations noting significantly shorter lengths of stay in UC compared to the ED—90.7 minutes compared to 172 minutes in 1 cited analysis. Further, the rate of ED referrals from UC ranged from 1.2% of patients to 16.4% of patients, suggesting that UC centers are doing appropriate triage, the authors say. In terms of cost, the average UC visit noted in the study data cost $168 compared to $2,199 for an ED visit.
UC’s market advantage: To prove its value, UC is on task to effectively communicate how its services save costs to the system, improve resource use, and satisfy patients. Taking the pressure off of EDs in an era of increasing sustainability issues for hospitals is a desirable market advantage.
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