Who visits the emergency room? Who are the people behind the numbers? Well, to understand who visits the emergency room in America, we took a look at the emergency room statistics as provided by the National Center for Health Statistics and there is a growing trend behind the numbers- more Americans, insured or not, are attending the emergency rooms.
Who Visits the Emergency Room?
57% of emergency room visits were from insured patients while the rest were uninsured
Of all the people that visited the emergency room in 2017, 57% had private insurance or used Medicaid to pay for the services. This is an increase from the previous data which showed that only 40% of all emergency room visits were made by insured patients. This goes to show that more Americans are embracing medical insurance.
25 in every 100 of all ER visitors are between 25 and 44 years old
A quarter of all the emergency room visitors are in the 25-44 age group. These are the people who are well informed and are cautious in life. They are equally outgoing and daring and are prone to illnesses and injuries. These people make up the largest number of people who end up being admitted in the intensive care units. This is because most of the people in this age group are brought to the ERs because of accidents either at work or on the road. Reckless driving is one of the leading causes of deaths in America and this is one of the most affected age groups.
40.5 Million injury-related visits
This is a massive statistic that helps demystify the idea that only people involved in accidents actually use the emergency rooms. This is only a third of the total number of people who actually end up in an emergency room in America. The remaining two thirds is made up of people suffering from other ailments like asthma and many other chronic ailments.
Only 15 million of all the visits resulted in hospital admission
Of the 165 million people that visited the emergency room, only 10% ended up hospitalized. The other 90% or so were discharged upon treatment. This only goes to show that most of the cases reported to the emergency rooms are only mild and don’t require further medical attention. Most of the cases that required hospitalization were cases of heart attacks, trauma, migraines and other serious ailments. Those with minor ailments like sneezing, excessive coughing and those who visited as a precautionary measure are most of the time treated and discharged to go home.
Only 2 million ended up being admitted to critical care units
The other important thing to note is the number of people who ended up in ICUs and other critical care units. These are essentially people who were on the verge of losing their lives but the efforts of the physicians and other practitioners in the emergency rooms helped save their lives. These are largely people involved in accidents or are struck my misfortunes like heart attacks. They are a small number but they require a lot of attention and care. They are the people who are normally given the priority using triage and take up most of the time in emergency rooms.
Children under the age of 15 make up the highest percentile of visitors to emergency rooms
More than 30% of all recorded emergency room visits in America were by patients with 15 or less years. This is a massive number but it is easy to see why. In this stage of life, kids are playful and not cautious. Kids in this age group are therefore prone to accidents and injuries. Their immunities are also pretty weak and any sort of infection will most probably take a toll on them. A good statistic worth mentioning is that only about 5% of these kids end up being hospital which shows that most of the ailments are only mild.
