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Dr. Kim Mulvilhill Reporting A major investigation of the nation's emergency care system has set off an alarm. This is an urgent wake up call for physicians, patients and lawmakers.
The American emergency care system is in critical condition and unprepared to handle a major disaster.
Emergency room doctors, nurses and ambulance personnel are entrusted with saving the lives of the most vulnerable-- the severely injured, the wounded, the traumatized.
However, a major investigation reveals how the emergency care system in the United States, and the San Francisco Bay area, is in serious trouble. It's overcrowded, overwhelmed, and at a breaking point.
Michael Callaham, M.D./ UCSF Div. of Emergency Medicine: "The Emergency Departments in America's hospitals are under severe contraints and that is a system that's near collapse."
Dr. Michael Callaham is chief of the division of emergency medicine at UCSF. He says part of the problem is the financial pressures hitting hospitals, and the increasing demand for care.
Dr. Callaham: "Many hospitals have closed. Hundreds of emergency departments across the United States have closed, and at the very same time the number of people coming in for care has increased. It's gone up 26% in the previous decade and continues to go up."
And many are uninsured.
Dr. Callaham: "They have fewer and fewer places to go for care that is free, and essentially the last place left is the emergency department."
Where that free care often leaves hospitals in the red, and is helping drive specialists away.
"In our present system, those people have no way of knowing they are going to be paid."
The report makes urgent recommendations, including coordinating care and establishing guidelines on overcrowding and ambulance diversions. And, spending money on guaranteed threats.
"Bioterrorism is one of the least likely disasters. We know there are going to be hurricanes. We know there are going to be floods. We know there is going to be flu epidemic. We know there are going to be quakes in California. Those are guaranteed diseases, and yet we spend more money on the possiblity someone might mail anthrax again."
Even a modest flu outbreak would rapidly overwhelm our existing emergency system.
This investigation was done by the Institute of Medicine, an independent scientific group that advises the government.
