The report underscores the urgent need to transform the way patients connect with healthcare providers, addressing issues like technology literacy in the growing senior population and the need for more virtual patient testing and procedures.
The Institute has released a new report that reveals one in seven – or 15 per cent – of visits to ERs between April 2023 and March 2024 were for conditions that could have been managed by a family doctor.
Further, as the report shows, of the 15 per cent of visits to the ER that could have been handled by a family doctor, over half – or 9 per cent – were for conditions that could have been managed virtually. And children make up a significant percent of visits where primary care would be a more appropriate fit: those age two to nine represented 26 per cent of those visits, much higher than other age groups.
As CIHI notes, the results provide a baseline measure for monitoring access to primary care and tracking improvement. The report was developed with two new indicator tools designed to help healthcare system leaders and policymakers measure and improve access to both primary and virtual care. These new indicators are:
- Visits to the emergency department for conditions that could be managed in primary care
- Visits to the emergency department for conditions that could be managed virtually in primary care