Studies Examine Ways To Curb Nonemergency Care in EDs, Risks of Individual Health Insurance

• "Safety Net Hospital Emergency Departments: Creating Safety Valves for Non-Urgent Care," Center for Studying Health System Change: According to the brief, hospital emergency departments are treating more patients, including those with non-urgent health needs, and safety net hospitals are looking for ways to meet those non-urgent needs more efficiently. The brief finds that a combination of approaches could help curb ED use for nonurgent care, including expansion of community health centers and community and health clinics, as well as strategies to improve their accessibility. Aligning hours of operation and available services among existing providers also could increase patients' care options at lower costs, according to the brief (HSC release, 5/7).
  
  
• "How Risky Is Individual Health Insurance?" Health Affairs: The study, by Mark Pauly and Robert Lieberthal of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, finds that insured people in fair or poor health are less likely to drop or lose coverage entirely if they have individual coverage rather than small-group coverage. It also states that workers with relatively poor health and small-group coverage who became unemployed were considerably more likely to become uninsured than their counterparts with individual coverage. People with either large- or small-group insurance, however, were less likely to become uninsured than those covered through the individual market, the study says (Health Affairs release, 5/6).
  
  
• "Planning for the Future -- Long-Term Care and the 2008 Election," New England Journal of Medicine: In the perspective, David Stevenson, an assistant professor of health policy at Harvard Medical School, discusses how the "candidates in the 2008 presidential race have been virtually silent about long-term care policy," despite the fact that long-term care "has all the makings of a great campaign issue." Stevenson also examines what long-term care issues should be addressed, including financing, system-structure and whether the emphasis should be on public or private programs (Stevenson, NEJM, 5/8).