What’s the best place to receive quality care for true medical emergencies? Free-standing emergency centers (FECs) like the ones Elite Care provides in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio are challenging long-held, conventional wisdom, but many emergency physicians practicing in hospitals have been quick to dismiss FECs.
This month, for Emergency Physicians Monthly, Elite Care medical director Dr. Eric McLaughlin took a closer look at the two models. He shared his own research and insight in comparing the “Big Box” emergency departments of hospitals against 11 freestanding emergency centers in Texas.
The data on hospital efficiency told a compelling story, with acute care facilities outside of the hospital, on average, delivering much faster care for emergent conditions than hospitals. The variations in performance didn’t stop there, and the trend toward alternative medical venues isn’t slowing down, a fact even physicians working inside big-box hospitals must admit.
“In our current healthcare climate where everything we do must come under scrutiny, we must challenge the dogma that dictates where we provide care,” Dr. McLaughlin wrote for epmonthly.com.
No matter a physician’s opinion on alternative venues like free-standing emergency centers, time is better spent working together to enhance acute care services than debating the facilities delivering them.
Read Dr. McLaughlin’s full report for Emergency Physicians Monthly here.