No one wants to go to the emergency department, no matter where or who they are. Going to the emergency department means, inherently, that something has gone wrong. For those coming in, it's a time of pain, anxiety, maybe fear, maybe even anger.
None of the patients or their loved ones who show up for emergency care on a given day woke up that morning and envisioned taking that trip before they put their head back down at night. "Emergency departments are, by their nature, high-emotion and high-stake settings," said Anish Agarwal, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine who works in the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center emergency department . That's a tough role to play when the emergency department is also considered the hospital's "front door," Agarwal said.
And, in being the front door—ready to help patients with any injury or illness who arrive without warning—emergency departments are also "safety nets." For underserved communities, emergency departments are also often the most accessible and most used entry point many people have with health care. "There are communities where there is this notion where you are connected to your hospital and, specifically, that emergency room," Agarwal said.
"The connections between hospitals and communities is important to engender trust and reinforce public health . It's a critical link between medicine and people." If someone has a bad experience or perceives their hospital poorly, it can mean that they're less likely.
