Emergency rooms are often used by patients to receive non-urgent services for many reasons including convenience, lack of primary care physician, perceived lack of availability of primary care physician (PCP), perception of rapid care, perception of higher quality care and familiarity. Emergency departments represents another form of hospital-based care that is a key contributor to health care cost and resource utilization.
A gap in access to primary care has led to significant over-utilization of the ED. Inappropriate use of the ED is also due to a gap in services caused by transportation barriers and inadequate PCP capacity.