Your Future Emergency Department

Over a decade ago, I was reading the prognostications of a health care futurist who said – “one day, hospitals will be an emergency room, a surgical suite, and a giant computer.” At the time, it seemed possible but not likely.  But, what a difference ten years have made.  What’s happening?  What I see are specialty ERs, the rise of urgent care centers (UCCs), and some very interesting experimentation with freestanding ERs for rural health care.

The first are more common in mental health than in any other discipline, and include psychiatric emergency departments and freestanding crisis stabilization units (CSU . . .