WGU MBA-HM first impressions and ongoing comments

[dmjacobsen]

Not to get sidetracked from the original post, but I think one of the big issues ER's are facing these days is the massive influx of available Urgent Care facilities that seem to be popping up everywhere. I know that I take myself and family to urgent care first before considering the ER since my insurance charges me an exorbitant amount if I/they don't end up staying overnight in the hospital.

I read an article somewhere about all this, maybe you can use this as one of your barriers?

This is definitely one of the issues I have discussed with my manager in the preliminary work for the capstone. We've had several urgent cares popping up in the local area that have probably impacted our fast track volume somewhat. I mentioned that we aren't really promoting our fast track capability in the ER at all, so we're not effectively competing against these urgent cares.

It's sort of a double-edged sword, though. One one hand, I do believe that urgent care centers are better for most of the patients that choose to go there. The ER is *not* the place for runny noses and stubbed toes. On the other hand, that's a lot of lost revenue on relatively easy cases. I think that, because of our overall decline in volume, we shouldn't be worried about our ER becoming overcrowded with these types of cases.